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IN 



THE 



WISDOM OF THE WORLD, 

IN 

Proverbs of All Nations. 



m Militant 5- Sbearer- 



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RICHARDSON, SMITH & COMPANY, 

PUBLISHERS, 

135 Fifth Avenue, New York. 



THE 



WISDOM OF THE WORLD, 



IN 



PROVERBS OF ALL NATIONS, 



BY 



William J. Shearer, A. M., Pd. D., 

Superintendent of Schools of the City of Elizabeth 
and County of Union, N. J. 



New York: 

Richardson, Smith & Co., 

135 Fifth Avenue, 

1904. 






< 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

MAY 12 1904 

Copyright Entry 

n/Lpu, . I *) - / q t> £ 

CLASS a XXc. No. 

3' 1 4 5 

COPY B 




Copyright, 1904, 
By William J. Shearer. 



JOURNAL PRESS, 
BLIZABBTH, N. J. 



:- 



M 

1 



TO 

flhv ffatber. 



PREFACE. 



Buxton says Proverbs are potted wisdom; Lord 
Russel, that they are the wit of one and the wis- 
dom of many; Cervantes, that they are short sen- 
tences drawn from long experience; Mackintosh, 
that they contain the good sense of nations ; Bacon, 
that they contain the genius, wit and spirit of a 
nation; Carlisle, that they contain more true spir- 
itual force than a philosophical system ; Cicero, that 
they are salt pits from which you may extract salt 
and scatter it everywhere. 

If the above statements are true, William Penn 
was right in his opinion that the wisdom of a 
nation lies in its proverbs. Fleming was justified 
in saying that they embody the current and prac- 
tical philosophy of the age. Trench justly asserted 
that they are always dear to the intellectual aris- 
tocracy. Goethe spoke truly when he said that a 
collection of them is the greatest of treasures. Dis- 
raeli had reason to say that a review of them 
should enter into our reading, for the reason that 
there seems to be no occurrence in human affairs 
to which some proverb may not be applied. 

Since all must acknowledge the absolute truth 
of the statements made by the most eminent au- 
thorities, a collection of the best proverbs is, truly, 



8 PREFACE. 

The Wisdom of the World, the golden fruit of 
knowledge and experience. 

Twenty years ago the writer began collecting 
these proverbs. From many thousands of those 
of all nations and all times, those which contain 
the statement of a truth have been carefully selected. 
Many thousands have purposely been omitted be- 
cause they contained but half a truth or were not 
such as should be offered to the refined reader. 
Under this class came thousands of Spanish, 
French, German and Italian proverbs. 

To make them more readable they have been 
grouped under more than six hundred topics, which 
were then arranged alphabetically so that it might 
be easy to refer to any subject. 

The effort to give the authorities was abandoned, 
for the reason that it seemed impossible to do so 
with any degree of accuracy. Nearly all are 
credited to several persons or nations. Many sup- 
posed to be original with modern writers can be 
traced back to the time of Aristotle or earlier. 
Since the authorities could not be given, the writer 
has not hesitated to change a great many, that they 
might the better suit the present time and system 
of morality. 

W. J. S. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGES. 

Ability, Absence, Abstinence, Abuse, Accident, Action, 
Admiration, Adversity, Advice, Affectation, Affection, 
Affliction, Age, Agnostic, Agriculture, Aim, Almsgiving, 
Ambition, Amendment, Ancestry, Angels, Anger, An- 
noyance, Answer, Anticipation, Anxiety, Applause, Appli- 
cation, Argument, Art, Assistance, Association, Atheism, 
Authors, Avarice 1 1-21 

Babes, Bachelor, Bargains, Beauty, Beggers, Benefits, Begin- 
nings, Better, Best, Betting, Biography, Birds, Birth, 
Blame, Blessed, Blessings, Blindness, Blood, Blushes, 
Boasting, Books, Borrowing, Bores, Bow, Brevity, Build- 
ing, Business, Buying 21-29 

Calamity, Calumny, Candor, Care, Caution, Censure, Cer- 
tainty, Character, Charity, Cheerfulness, Cheating, Chil- 
dren, Church, Circumstances, Civility, Civilization, Citi- 
zenship, Cleanliness, Cold, Common Sense, Community, 
Companions, Comparisons, Complaisance, Compliments, 
Conceit, Concentration, Condemnation, Confession, Confi- 
dence, Conqueror, Conscience, Conscientiousness, Con- 
stancy, Contempt, Content, Controversy, Corporations, 
Correction, Counsellors, Country, Courage, Court, _ Court- 
ship, Covetousness, Cowardice, Cranks, Credit, Criticism, 
Crosses, Cruelty, Cunning, Curiosity, Curses, Custom . . . 29-47 

Dancing, Dandy, Danger, Daughter, Days, Death, Debt, 
Deceit, Delay, Deliberation, Delusion, Desire, Destiny, 
Despair, Devil, Devotion, Diet, Difficulties, Diligence, 
Discussion, Disappointments, Disparagement, Discontent, 
Disease, Doubt, Doctors, Dogmatism, Dreams, Dress, 
Drunkenness, Dupe, Duty 47-57 

Early Rising, Ease, Eccentricities, Economy, Education, 
Egotism, Eloquence, Employment, Emulation, Encourage- 
ment, Envy, Error, Eternity, Evidence, Evil, Example, 
Excellence, Expenditure, Experience, Extravagance, Ex- 
tremes, Eyes 57-68 

Facts, Failure, Faith, Faults, Faithfulness, Falsehood, Fame, 
Familiar Phrases, Familiarity, Fanaticism, Fashion, Fate, 
Father, Favor, Fear, Fee, Feeling, Fiction, Fidelity, 
Finery, Firmness, Flattery, Flowers, Folly ? Food, Fool, 
Forbearance, Foresight, Forethought, Forgiveness, Fort- 
ress, Fortune, Fox, Fraud, Freeman, Friendship, Frugal- 
ity, Futurity 69-82 

Gains, Gallantry, Gambling, Gaiety, Gentleman, Gentleness, 
Gossip, Government, Genius, Gifts, Glory, God, Godli- 
ness, Good, Good Breeding, Good Humor, Good Nature, 
Good Temper, Grace, Gratitude, Grave, Greatness, Greed, 
Grief, Grit, Guilt 82-90 

Habit, Happiness, Harvest, Haste, Hate, Head, Health, 
Hearing, Heart, Heaven, Heroism, History, Hell, Hobby, 
Home, Honesty, Honor, Hope, Horses, Hospitality, Hours, 
Humality, Hunger, Hurry, Husband, Hypocrisy 90-101 

Icicle, Ideals, Ideas, Idleness, Idle Wishing, Ignorance, 
Imagination, Independence, Industry, Instinct, Inten- 
tions, Imitation, Immorality, Impatience, Impossibility, 
Impulse, Inconsistency, Infidelity, Ingratitude, Injury, 
Injustice, Insanity, Insignificence, Instruction, Insults, 
Integrity, Intellect, Irresolution 101-109 

Jealously, jests, Journey, Joy, Judge, Judgment, Justice... 109-m 

Kindness, Kisses, Kleptomania, Knavery, Knowledge 1 11- 113 



10 CONTENTS. 



Labor, Indies, language, Laughter, Lawyers, Laziness, 
Learning, Leisure, letters, Lenity, Liars, Liberty, 
Libraries, Life, Light, Literature, Little Things, Logic, 
Losses, Love, Lovers, Luxury, Lying 1 13-124 

Madness, Maidens, Malice, Man, Marriage, Martyrs, Mas- 
ters, Mathematics, Maxims, Means, Medicine, Meditation, 
Melancholy, Mercy, Merit, Method, Meekness, Memory, 
Metaphysica, Mills, Mind, Miracles, Miscellaneous, Mis- 
chief, Misers, Misery, Misfortune, Moderation, Mistakes, 
Modesty, Mobs, Money, Morality, Mother, Murmuring, 
Music, Mystery 124-143 

Names, Nations, Nature, Necessity, Need, Negligence, 
Neighbor, Neutrality, News, Newspapers, Nobility, Non- 
sense, Novels 143-147 

Oath, Obedience, Obscurity, Observation, Occupation, Opin- 
ion, Opportunities, Oppression, Opposition, Orators, Ora- 
tory, Order, Originality, Ownership 147-151 

Pain, Painting, Pardon, Parents, Passions, Payment,, Pa- 
tience, Patriotism, Peace, Perseverence, Pessimism, Phil- 
osophy, Physicians, Pity, Plagiarists, Poetry, Policy, 
Politeness, Politics, Populace, Popularity, Possession, 
Poverty, Power, Presumption, Pride, Principles, Procras- 
tination, Progress, Promises, Promptness, Prosperity, 
Proverbs, Providence, Punctuality, Punishment, Pur- 
chases, Purposes 151-165 

Quarrel, Questions, Quotations 165-166 

Rashness, Reason, Refinement, Reflection, Reform, Regret, 
Religion, Remedies, Remorse, Rent, Repentance, Repres- 
sion, Reproof, Reputation, Reserve, Rest, Retribution, Re- 
venge, Reverence, Rewards, Ridicule, Right, Rogues, 
Rules, Rhymes 166-174 

Sabbath, Sarcasm, Scandal, Scold, Seasickness, Secrets, 
Self-Conceit, Self-Control, Self-Denial, Self-Reliance, Self- 
Improvement, Selfishness, Self-Knowledge, Self-Love, 
Self-Righteousness, Sense, Sentiment, Servants, Shadows, 
Shame, Sickness, Silence, Sieve, Sincerity, Slander, Sleep, 
Sloth, Smiles, Snare, Sneers, Society, Soldiers,_ Solitude, 
Songs, Sorrow, Sovereign, Sowing, Speech, Spring, Stars, 
Statesman, Strenuous, Study, Style, Sublinity, Success, 
Suicide, Superstition, Surety, Suspicion, Sweetheart, 
Sympathy 174-190 

Tact, Talkativeness, Task, Taste, Teaching, Tears, Temper, 
Temperance, Temptation, Tenderness, Thankfulness, The- 
atres, Theology, Theories, Thief, Thought, Thoughts for 
the Thirsty, Thunder, Time, Toil, Tongue, Toothache, 
Trace, Trades, Tramps, Tragedy, Travel, Treasure, Trees, 
Triflles, Trouble, Truth, Trust, Tyranny 190-201 

Ugliness. Unbelief, Uncivil, Understanding, Usefulness, 

Usury 201-202 

Vacation, Vagrancy, Valor, Vanity, Variety, Vice, Violence, 

Virtue, Vivacity, Vulgarity 202-207 

Wag, Wager, Waiting, Wants, War, Weakness, Wealth, 
Weariness, Weather, Well Doing, Whispers, Widow, Wife, 
Will Power, Willingness, Wine, Wisdom, Wishing, Wit, 
Woe, Women and Wedlock, Words, World, Worry, Worth 
Remembering, Wrong Doing, Wounds 207-224 

Youth 224 



THE 



WISDOM OF THE WORLD, 

IN 

Proverbs of All Nations. 



Ability. 

Men are capable of greater things than they per- 
form. 

Who does the best his circumstances will allow, 
does well. 

Ability is a poor man's treasure, and compensates 
for absence of talent. 

Ability involves responsibility. 

Sometimes there is not less ability in knowing 
how to use than in giving good advice. 

Absence. 

'Tis sweet to know an eye will mark our coming, 
and look brighter when we come. 

The absent claim a sigh ; the dead, a tear. 

The joy of meeting again lessens the pang of ab- 
sence. 

The absent are never without fault. 

Out of sight, out of mind. 

Absence in love is like water on fire; a little 
quickens, but much extinguishes. 

Abstinence. 

Always rise from the table with an appetite, and 
you will never sit down without one. 

Abstinence is the best medicine, and is the mother 
of contentment. 

Diet cures more than the lancet. 

Abuse. 

Reproach may be preferable; abuse never. 



12 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Liberty may be endangered by abuse of liberty, as 
well as by the abuse of power. 
We hate those we have abused. 

Accident. 

The greatest results often originate in accidents. 

With God nothing is accidental. 

Crown every passing day with some good action. 

We are authors of our own disasters. 

How poor an instrument may do a noble deed. 

Action. 

God helps those who help themselves. 
The greatest end of life is not knowledge, but ex- 
perience. 

It is not your posterity but your actions that will 
perpetuate your name. 

It is not the act but the motive that should be 
censured or extolled. 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 

Is our destined end or way; 
But to act that each to-morrow 
Finds us farther than to-day. 
Let us, then, be up and doing, 

With a heart for any fate ; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor and to wait. 
Admiration. 

Admiration is the daughter of ignorance. 
Admiration is a short-lived passion. 
Admiration is more tolerant than love. 
Adversity. 

Every path hath its puddle. 
No trials, no triumphs. 
Every man has his Waterloo. 
Better to be a "has been" than a "might have 
been." 



ADVICE. 13 

Many who go out for berries come back with 
briars. 

Defeat is a tonic to a brave man. 

He that stumbles and falls not quite gains a step. 

Adversity is a severe instructor, but the best. 

Sweet are the uses of adversity. 

No cross, no crown. 

Noble souls, through dust and heat, 
Rise from disaster and defeat 
The stronger. 
If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength 
is small. 

When adverse winds and waves arise, 
And in my heart despondence sighs — 
When life her throng of care reveals, 
And weakness o'er my spirit steals, 
Grateful I hear the kind decree 
That "as my day my strength shall be. ,, 

Advice. 

Nothing given so willingly as advice. 

The best advice is — don't give any. 

Never give advice unasked. 

The stingy man loves to give advice — it costs 
nothing. 

Forewarned is forearmed. 

People only ask advice when they want their own 
opinions confirmed. 

Bachelors' wives and old maids' children are al- 
ways well taught. 

Every sore-eyed person is an oculist. 

Good advice is beyond all price. 

For advice a man goes to his lawyer ; a woman to 
her lover. 

He that will not be saved needs no sermon. 

He who won't be advised can't be helped. 

No advice like a father's — or a mother's. 



14 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Often that which we call giving advice is only 
taking occasion to show off our own wisdom at an- 
other's expense. 

Of quinine and advice it is more blessed to give 
than to take. 

Good advice is beyond all price. 

Affectation. 

Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than 
smallpox. 

By affecting to be worse than they are, some get 
credit for being honest. 

Men are never so ridiculous for qualities they 
have as for those they affect to have. 

Affectation is an assumption of what we are not. 

Affection. 

Our domestic affections are the most salutary 
bases of good government. 

Of all earthly things that which furthest pene- 
trates heaven is the beating of a truly loving heart, 
which usually controls the head. 

Gratitude is the music of the heart. 

The best way of recognizing a benefit is never to 
forget it. 

The affection and the reason are both necessary 
factors in morality. 

The mind has a thousand eyes, 

And the heart but one ; 
Yet the light of a whole life dies 
When love is done. 

True gratitude never forgets. 

We love because we must love. 

How much we owe to our parents. 

A man who desires friends must show himself 
friendly. 

We strengthen our feelings by giving them suit- 
able expression. 



AGNOSTIC. IS 

Affliction. 

Affliction is the school of virtue. 

Affliction separates the wheat from the chaff. 

Afflictions are but mercies in disguise. 

Great trials prepare us for great duties. 

No man would be happy without them. 

God afflicts us to draw us nearer to him. 

One affliction is better than a thousand exhorta- 
tions. 

The best people need affliction to bring their vir- 
tues into play. 

The afflicted person is sacred, and the best remedy 
is to submit to Providence, for there is mercy in af- 
fliction's smarts. 

Age. 

Few persons know how to grow old gracefully. 

Age is a venerable traveling companion. 

Young men think the aged to be fools, and old 
men know that young men are so. 

Age makes a man's hair white, but does not im- 
prove his disposition. 

Honorable old age is the harbinger of immortality. 

Though old and wise be still advised. 

Aged men object too much, consult too long, ven- 
ture too little, repent too soon, and are content with 
a mediocrity of success. 

Old boys have playthings as well as young ones ; 
the difference is only in the price. 

The aged forget ; the young don't know. 

When men grow virtuous in old age they are 
merely sacrificing to God the devil's leavings. 
Agnostic. 

An agnostic is a man who does not know whether 
there is a God or not, or whether he has a soul or 
not. 

Whoever considers the study of anatomy I believe 



16 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

will never be an atheist ; the frame of a man's body 
and the coherence of his parts being so strange and 
paradoxical that I hold it to be the greatest miracle 
of nature. 

Agriculture. 

Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but 
the only riches she can call her own. 

He that by the plow would thrive, himself must 
either hold or drive. 

Be the first in the field and the last to the couch. 

Aim. 

Better aim at a star than shoot down a well ; you'll 
hit higher. 

A life without a purpose is like a ship without a 
rudder. 

Without a purpose what were life? 
Eating, sleeping, toil and strife. 

A spur in the head is worth two in the heels. 

Better little talent and much purpose than much 
talent and little purpose. 

Almsgiving. 

We are rich only through what we give. 

Give work rather than alms to the poor. 

To pity distress is human, to relieve it Godlike. 

He who ministers not to the need of others re- 
mains unblest. 

Give not grudgingly, for the Lord loveth a cheer- 
ful giver. 

Generosity never impoverished a man, nor rob- 
bery enriched him, nor prosperity made him wise. 

Ambition. 

Ambition is a powerful source of good or ill. 

Have an aim in life, or your energies will all be 
wasted. 



ANGELS. 17 

Every one should take the helm of his own life 
and steer instead of drifting. 

Hope without an object cannot live. 
Ambition is to life just what steam is to the loco- 
motive. 

No toil, no hardships can restrain ambitious men 
inured to pain. 

The men at the summit fought their way up from 
the bottom. 

Not what others have done, but perfection, is the 
only true aim. 

Heaven is not reached by a single bound, 
But we build the ladder by which we rise 
From the lowest earth to the vaulted skies 
And we mount to its summit round by round. 
Covetous ambition, thinking all too little which 
presently it hath, supposeth itself to stand in need 
of all which it hath not. 

Amendment. 

Whatever may have been the past, however black 
and hideous, it hath a present cure — repentance and 
amendment. 
Ancestry. 

He who boasteth of his ancestors confesses he 
has no virtue of his own. 

A man's ancestors do not make him great. 
Men do not live in the past. 
They who on glorious ancestors enlarge, 
Produce their debt, instead of their discharge. 

Angels. 

Angels are our guardian spirits. 

In olden days God sent his angels oft 

To men in threshing floors, to women pressed 
With daily tasks they came to tent and croft, 

And whispered words of blessing and of rest. 



18 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Angels' visits are few and far between. 
Many talk like angels and live like men. 

Anger. 

The anger of relatives is the deadliest. 

Whosoever shall be angry with his brother shall 
be in danger of the judgment. 

Beware the anger of a patient man. 

Two things a man should never be, angry at what 
he can help and what he can't. 

Anger renders a man insane. 

No man is free who does not command himself. 

A man in a passion rides a horse that runs away 
with him. 

When angry count ten. 

Let not the sun go down upon your anger. 

An angry man is again angry with himself when 
he returns to reason. 

He who overcomes his anger subdues his worst 
enemy. 

The art of education is to learn the art of repres- 
sion. 

Hate a man's acts, but not the man himself. 

Annoyance. 

We submit to small annoyances to achieve great 
results. 

Answer. 

A soft answer turneth away wrath. 

Answer not a fool according to his folly. 

Not all questions require reply. 

The shortest and best answer is performing the 
request. 

Anticipation. 

Fear will make thee wretched, though evil follow 
not behind. 

He who would gather roses must not fear thorns. 



APPLICATION. T9 

He may hope for the best that is prepared for the 
worst. 

He that wants hope is the poorest man alive. 

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when 
the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. 

We enjoy or suffer by anticipation what we never 
realize. 

Hope as a star, to heart and eye, beams from afar 
reality. 

Anxiety. 

Anxiety is valueless unless it provides a defence. 

Anxiety is the rust of life. 

It is not work but worry that kills men. 

Keep in the sunlight. 

Anxiety is the poison of life. 

Ape. 

An ape's an ape, a varlet's a varlet, 
Whether they be clad in silk or scarlet. 

Applause. 

Oh, popular applause, what heart of man is proof 
against thy sweet seducing charms. 

Men seek less to be instructed than applauded. 

Applause is the spur of noble minds. 

Popular applause is but a blast of air, and as 
changeable. 

Application. 

The want of application rather than the means to 
acquire success results in life's failure. 

Few things are impracticable ; it is for want of 
application rather than from circumstances that men 
fail of success. 

Idleness is the parent of want and of pain; but 
the labor of virtue bringeth forth pleasure. 



20 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Argument. 

Calmness in argument is a great advantage. 
Argument makes three enemies to one friend. 
Never argue while eating. 

There is no disputing against a man who denies 
a principle. 

Who shall decide when doctors disagree 
And soundest casuists doubt like you and me ? 

Art. 

The perfection of art is to conceal art. 

Art is power. 

Art subdues our nature and repels all rudeness. 

Necessity is the mother of invention. 

True art is reverent imitation of deity; art may 
err, but nature cannot. 

Art is the attempted reproduction of nature. 

A man's entire attention must be given to his art, 
for art is a jealous mistress. 

Assistance. 

Men help thee most that think thou hast no need. 
But if the world once thy misfortune know, thou 
soon shall lose a friend and find a foe. 

Association. 

He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith. 

One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel. 

He who goes with wolves learns to howl. 

Tell me who are thy companions, and I will ac- 
quaint thee with thy character and habits. 

The goose goes with geese. 

You may keep yourself safe from fire, but not 
from evil companions. 

The most agreeable of companions is a simple, 
frank man, without pretensions to an oppressive 
greatness. 



BABES. 21 

A wise man is known by the company he keeps 
out of. 
Atheism. 

An atheist is one point beyond the devil. 

Some are atheists only in fair weather. 

It is the death of hope and the suicide of the soul. 

Authors. 

Literature has her quacks no less than medicine. 

Incessant scribbling is death to thought. 

He that would write what is worthy to be read 
more than once should blot frequently. 

Choose an author as you would a friend. 

Like author, like book. 

His secret studies are the sunken cares. 

He who proposes to be an author should first be a 
student. 
Avarice. 

If you would banish avarice, you must first banish 
luxury, its mother. 

Avarice is the vice of declining years. 

Poverty craves some things, luxury many ; avarice 
all things. 

Avarice sheds a blasting influence everywhere. 

Oh, cursed lust for gold, when for its sake the 
fool throws up his interest in both worlds; first 
starved in this, then damned in that to come. 

Avarice and fidelity cannot dwell together in the 
same house. 

The avaricious man is always in want. 

When all other sins are old avarice is yet young. 

Babes. 

A babe in the house is a wellspring of pleasure. 
He is his mother's angel. 
We dislike the squalling of a neighbor's brat. 
The child is father to the man. 



22 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. 

Wherever yet was found a mother who'd give her 
baby for another? 

To a wise doctor all babies are angels. 

The smallest child is nearest to God, as the small- 
est planets are nearest the sun. 

Heaven lies about us in our infancy. 

Bachelor. 

Who would avoid strife let him remain a bachelor. 
Call no man unhappy till he is married. 
Though marriage has some pains, celibacy has 
few pleasures. 

Until a man finds a wife he is only a half. 
Then here's to the jolly bachelor's life, 
And may he live till he takes a wife. 

Bargains. 

It takes two to make a bargain. 

It is only good bargains that ruin us. 

Good bargains are pickpockets. 

Make the best of a bad bargain. 

It takes two good bargains to ruin a man. 

Bargains are often costly ventures. 

Beauty. 

A pretty face wins a case. 

A fair face may be a foul bargain, and may hide 
a foul heart. 

All that's fair must fade. 

Beauty is the first gift that Nature makes to a 
woman, and the first it takes away. 

All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth. 

A beautiful and chaste woman is the perfect work- 
manship of God, the true glory of angels, a miracle 
on earth, and the sole wonder of the world. 

It is a great plague for a man to be handsome. 

The love of beauty oft redeems a fallen man. 



BEGINNINGS. 23 

Loveliness unadorned is adorned the most. 
If eyes were made for seeing, 
Then beauty is its own excuse for being. 

'Tis the stainless soul within that outshines the 
fairest skin. 

The love of the beautiful is an unfailing source 
of happiness. 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever, 
Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. 

Beggars. 

A beggar nowhere suffers from famine. 

Beggars and borrowers cannot be choosers. 

He who is not ashamed to beg is not ashamed to 
steal. 

Country tramps are not aimless wanderers as they 
seem. They are organized under a captain, who 
prescribes their routes, which are circuited. They 
may not leave their circuits. They have a secret 
mark, understood by the tramp only, on every man's 
gate or entrance. It indicates whether or not he 
may expect anything there. 

Benefits. 

Benefits turn into poison with ungrateful people. 
To receive a benefit is to sell one's liberty. 
Benefits, like flowers, please most when fresh. 
Benefits grow old betimes, but injuries last long. 
Let him who gives be silent, for there is no benefit 
so small that a good man will not magnify it. 

Beginnings. 

Well begun is half done. 

Begin in time to finish without hurry. 



24 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

If you wish to reach the highest, start with the 
lowest. 

Good to begin well, better to end well. 
Ill begun, ill done. 
Every day is a fresh beginning, 

Every morn is the world made new. 
You who are weary of sorrow and sinning, 
Here's a beautiful hope for you ; 
A hope for me and a hope for you. 

Better. 

Good management is better than good income. 

Of two evils choose the lesser. 

Of two evils choose neither — if you can help it. 

Better late than never. 

The law of love is better than the love of law. 

Better say nothing than nothing to the purpose. 

Better let the feet slip than the tongue. 

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a 
stalled ox and hatred therewith. 

Better be troubled for sin than by sin. 

An injury forgiven is better than an injury re- 
venged. 

Say well and do well, end with one letter, 
Say well is good, but do well is better. 

Better wear out shoes than sheets. 

Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than 
great treasure and trouble therewith. 

Best. 

The best eyes look inward and upward. 

The best sauce is hunger. 

The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft 
a-gley. 

Best to bend it while it is a twig. 

There is nothing so well done but may be 
amended. 



BLESSED. 25 

Betting. 

Betting is a fool's argument, but it's very con- 
vincing when you win. 

Biography. 

One personal anecdote of a man is worth a 
volume of biography. 

The best instructors are the lives of great men. 

No man's full life has ever been written by him- 
self, or another, or ever can be. 

Birds. 

A bird is known by its note, and a man by his talk. 
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. 
Birds of prey do not flock together and do not 
sing. 

Every bird is known by its feathers. 
An old bird is not caught by chaff. 

Birth. 

No man can help his birth. 

High birth is a poor dish at a table. 

Blame. 

He should be pure who censures another. 

Who lends his lips to naught but blame hath in 
his heart no love of fame. 

A man is bad off who has no one to blame but 
himself. 

Blessed. 

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth 
not iniquity, and in whom there is no guile. 
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. 

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be 
comforted. 



26 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the 
earth. 

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after 
righteousness: for they shall be filled. 

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see 
God. 

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be 
called the children of God. 

Blessed are they which are persecuted for right- 
eousness' sake : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Blessings. 

Blessings brighten as they take their flight. 
They are not truly valued until they are gone. 
You know not where a blessing may light. 

Blindness. 

None so blind as those who will not see. 
Blood. 

Blood is thicker than water, and boils without fire. 

The cold in clime are cold in blood. 

Noble and ignoble blood are of the same color. 

Blushes. 

When a girl ceases to blush she has lost the most 
powerful charm of her beauty. 

A blush on the face is better than a blot on the 
heart. 

Blushing is virtue's color. 

Blushes are attractive but often inconvenient. 

Boasting. 

Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest 
not what a day may bring forth. 

All my goods are of silver and gold, even my cop- 
per kettle, says the boaster. 

Said the devil to the boaster, "Come up higher, 
This seat is reserved for the champion liar," 



BORROWING. 27 

For men, it is reported, dash and vapor 

Less on the field of battle than on paper. 

Thus in the hist'ry of dire campaign 

More carnage loads the newspapers than the plain. 

Books. 

Choose an author as you choose a friend. 

Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisi- 
tion is good books. 

Judge not a book by its cover. 

Books are the wardrobes of literature, the shrines 
of genius. 

A few good books digested well do feed the mind. 

We are liable to be corrupted by books as by com- 
panions. 

There is no friend so faithful as a good book. 

Like friends, books should be few and well chosen. 

It is a man's duty to have books. A library is not 
a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life. 

Precious and priceless are the blessings which 
books scatter around our daily paths. 

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master 
spirit. 

Of bad books we can never have too few, of good 
never too many. 

Books bring me friends, where'er on earth I be, 
Solace of solitude, bonds of society. 

All around the room my silent servants wait, 
My friends in every season. 

Always read the preface to a book. It enables 
you to survey more completely the book itself. You 
frequently also discover the character of the author 
from the preface. 

Borrowing. 

The borrower is servant to the lender. 
Borrowing is the mother of trouble. 
Friendship stops where borrowing begins. 



28 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

If you would know the value of money, try to 
borrow some. 

Borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 

Who to his friend his money lends, 
May lose his money and his friend. 

Neither borrower nor lender be, for loan oft loses 
itself and friend. 

If you would make an enemy, lend a man money 
and ask it again. 

Beware of going security for thy friends. 

Who wants an enemy lends him money. 

Borrowing brings anxiety and is the mother of 
trouble. 

He who loans a man money, loses both coin and 
friend. 

He that goes a-borrowing, goes a-sorrowing. 

Bores. 

A man is not deemed a bore who talks about you. 

If you would get rid of a bore, lend him money. 
Bow. 

The bow that is oftenest unbent, will be the long- 
est to retain its strength and elasticity. 

Brevity. 

It is a great grace of eloquence. 
Brevity is the soul of wit. 

Building. 

Building is sweet impoverishing. 

Fools build houses, wise men live in them. 

All men build castles in the air, if nowhere else. 

The cheapest buildings are air castles. 

The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay, 

Provides a home from which to run away. 

Business. 
Business neglected is business lost. 



CALUMNY. 29 

Business and action strengthen the brain, but too 
much study weakens it. 

Business before pleasure. 

Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee. 

Who drives not his business is driven by it. 

You cannot market with empty pockets. 

When you call on a man of business, attend to 
your business and then go about your business. 

A fair exchange is no robbery. 

There are tricks in all trades but ours. 

Endeavor to be first in thy calling, whatever it be. 

A jack of all trades and master of none. 

Everybody's business is nobody's business. 

Never shrink from doing anything your business 
calls you to do. 

The man who is above his business may one day 
find his business above him. 

Buying. 

Quick returns make rich merchants. 
Never buy a pig in a poke. 
Don't buy yourself poor. 

Calamity. 

Every man has his Waterloo. 

A bird never flew so high but it had to come to 
the ground. 

Misfortunes come on horseback and go away on 
foot. 

He that has never known adversity is but half ac- 
quainted with himself. 

The good seaman is known in bad weather. 

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in 
rising every time we fall. 

Calumny. 

Calumny will soil virtue itself. 



30 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Be thou as chaste as ice and pure as snow, thou 
shall not escape calumny. 

Backwounding calumny the whitest virtue strikes. 

The assassin inflicts death but once, the calumni- 
ator many times. 

Candor. 

Candor looks with equal fairness at both sides of 
a subject. 

Daylight and truth meet us with clear dawn. 

There is no fear for any child who is frank with 
his father and mother. 

Candor is the sign of a noble mind. 

Candor is a virtue which is everywhere com- 
mended. 

Frankness is a combination of truthfulness and 
courage. 

Frankness and candor will always win respect and 
friendship. 

Candor is the pride of the true man, the charm 
of the noble woman, and the rarest virtue of society. 

Care. 

Want of care is more dangerous than want of 
knowledge. 

Negligence is the rust of the soul. 

Twenty things half done do not make one thing 
well done. 

Little goods, little care. 

Exactness in small matters brings cheerfulness. 

Light cares speak, great ones are dumb. 

Accuracy first, rapidity afterward. 

Care and diligence insure success. 

The accurate boy is always favored. 

No one knows the weight of another's burden. 

Life's cares are comforts, such by Heaven de- 
signed. 

Cast all your care on God : that anchor holds. 



CHARACTER. 31 

Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be 
strong. 

Care that broods with drooping wing only broods 
of care will bring. 

Every day has its care ; but each care has its day. 

Be careful or you may be full of cares. 

Caution. 

Better be a coward for a minute than lose your 
life. 

He that fights and runs away, may live to fight 
another day; but he that's in the battle slain, will 
never live to fight again. 

Better they should say, "There he ran away" than 
"There he died." 

Vessels large may venture more, but little boats 
should keep near the shore. 

Censure. 

The censure of our opponents is complimentary 
to us. 

Men will lessen what they cannot imitate. 

Virtue is not secure against envy. 

Let thy pride pardon what thy nature needs, the 
salutary censure of a friend. 

Certainty. 

Certainty is the father of right and the mother of 
history. 

Nothing is certain in this world but death and 
taxation. 

He that leaves certainty and trusts to chance, 
When fools pipe, he may dance. 

Character. 

A character, like a kettle, once mended, always 
requires repairs. 

The great hope in society is in individual char- 
acter. 



32 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Your character cannot be essentially ruined ex- 
cept by your own acts. 

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you 
must hammer and forge yourself one. 
Sow an act, reap a habit, 
Sow a habit, reap a character, 
Sow a character, reap a destiny. 
Character is higher than intellect. 
Character is what we are in the dark. 
A religious element is essential to a perfect char- 
acter. 

Charity. 

Charity covereth a multitude of sins. 

He who has no charity deserves no mercy. 

Men should show charity to offenders. 

To pity distress is human, to relieve it Godlike. 

The golden key that opens heaven's gates. 

Give not grudgingly, for the Lord loves a cheer- 
ful giver. 

Charity begins at home but should not end there. 

Charity is the scope of all God's commandments. 

Generosity never impoverished a man, nor rob- 
bery enriched him, nor prosperity made him wise. 

The conqueror is regarded with awe, the wise 
man commands our esteem, but it is the benevolent 
man who wins our affections. 

Remember that charity thinketh no evil, much less 
repeats it. 

Cast thy bread upon the waters; God will know 
of it, if the fishes do not. 

There are two good rules that ought to be written 
on every heart — never believe anything bad about 
anybody unless you positively know it to be true; 
never tell even that unless you feel it absolutely ne- 
cessary, and that God is listening while you tell it. 

The hand that gives, gathers. 



CHEATING. 33 

One hand opened in charity is worth a hundred 
folded in prayer. 

There are many people who continually pray to 
God to give, give, give ; but when the poor appeal to 
them for help they turn away. 

Cheerfulness. 

Cheerfulness has been called the bright weather 
of the heart. 

A cheerful spirit moveth quick — a grumbler in the 
mud will stick. 

Be always as cheerful as ever you can, for few will 
delight in a sorrowful man. 

Nothing more communicative than the moderate 
joy of cheerfulness. 

To be cheerfully disposed at hours of meat, sleep 
and exercise, is one of the best precepts of long last- 
ing. 

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health. 

Give us, oh give us, the man who sings at his 
work. 

Age without cheerfulness is like a Lapland winter 
without the sun. 

An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sad- 
ness. 

The habit of looking at the bright side of things 
is better than an income of a thousand a year. 

Cheerfulness costs nothing and yet it is invaluable. 

Try for a day to keep yourself in an easy and 
cheerful frame of mind. 

A little word in kindness spoken, 

A motion or a tear, 
Has often healed a heart that's broken, 
And made a friend sincere. 
Cheating. 

He is most cheated who cheats himself. 

He who cheats in small things is a fool. 



34 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

He who cheats me once, shame for him; but he 
who cheats me twice, shame for me. 

Children. 

Let the child's first lesson be obedience, and the 
second may be what thou wilt. 
The house without children is a cemetery. 
Only in their mirth is a house complete. 
Little children and headaches, and great children 
and heartaches. 

Children have more need of models than of critics. 
Children are poor men's riches. 
Give to a pig when it grunts and a child when it 
cries, and you will have a fine pig and a bad child. 
When children stand quiet they have done some 
mischief. 

Suffer the children to come unto me, and forbid 
them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. 

My son's my son till he gets him a wife; my 
daughter's my daughter the rest of her life. 
He will not blush that hath a father's heart 
To take in childish plays a childish part, 
But bends his sturdy back to any toy 
That youth takes pleasure in, to please his boy. 
Delightful task ! to rear the tender thought, 
To teach the young idea how to shoot, 
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind, 
To breathe th' enlivening spirit, and to fix 
The generous purpose in the glowing breast. 
O thou child of many prayers, 
Life hath quicksands, life hath snares. 

Church. 
All are not saints that go to church. 
Religion lies more in walk than in talk. 
A church debt is the devil's salary. 
Religion is not an end, but a means. 



CITIZENSHIP. 35 

Most men forget God all day, and ask Him to 
remember them at night. 

Men will wrangle for religion ; write for it ; fight 
for it ; die for it ; anything but live for it. 

People take more pains to be damned than to be 
saved. 

We are usually the best men when in the worst 
health. 

Circumstances. 

We are often victims of circumstances. They are 
beyond man's control. 
Civility. 

A man without a smiling face should not open a 
shop. 

Three things are requisite in business: Knowl- 
edge, temper, and time. 

A civil denial is better than a rude grant. 

Civility costs nothing and buys everything. 

Civilization. 

As are families so is society. 

Civilization attains its highest growth when 
Christianity prevails, and woman is exalted to her 
normal position. 

Citizenship. 

Voters are the uncrowned kings who rule the na- 
tion. 

A second-rate man can never make a first-rate 
citizen. 

Every good man in politics wields a power for 
good. 

If you want a clean city, vote to place the gov- 
ernment in clean hands. 

The ideal citizen is the man who believes that all 
men are brothers, and that the nation is merely an 
extension of his family. 



36 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

A great nation is made only by worthy citizens. 

Nothing is politically right that is morally wrong. 

The noblest principle in education is to teach how 
best to live for one's country. 

The good citizen will never consent that his voice 
and vote shall sanction a public wrong. 

Let our object be our country, our whole country, 
and nothing but our country. 

Cleanliness. 

Cleanliness is next to Godliness. 
Cold. 

As the day lengthens the cold strengthens. 
Common Sense. 

A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of 
learning. 

Learning is not wisdom any more than cloth is 
clothes. 

There are forty men of wit to one man of sense. 

Better sense in the head than cents in the pocket. 
Better be wise, and look simple, 
Than look wise, and be simple. 

The price of wisdom is above rubies. 

Reason governs a wise man and cudgels a fool. 

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man 
knows himself to be a fool. 

Fools are the wise man's leader. 

Wise men learn more from fools than fools from 
the wise. 

Common sense is not common. 

Community. 

Municipal government should be entirely divorced 
from party politics. 

Too many of our citizens fail to realize that local 
government is a worthy study. 

Every citizen should be ready to do his full part 



COMPARISONS. 37 

in the service of the community in which he lives. 

Each separate township needs men who will in- 
spire respect and command confidence. 

Let the man who, without good excuse, fails to 
vote, be deprived of the right to vote. 

Man is selfish as well as social. 

We must not take too narrow a view of public life. 

Our one supreme object should be to raise the 
tone of our citizenship. 

The motto of every good citizen should be, "the 
best means to promote the greatest good to the 
greatest number." 

Companions. 

No company is preferable to bad. 

Keep good company and you'll be of them. 

Birds of a feather flock together. 

Wicked companions invite us to hell. 
Comparisons. 

Comparisons are odious. 

Failure is success to thee if thou could'st read all 
truth. 

The epicure puts his purse into his belly, and the 
miser his belly into his purse. 

Most haste, worst speed. 

To err is human, to forgive divine. 

Better an egg to-day than a hen to-morrow. 

The worst wheel always creaks most. 

He who decries wants to buy. 

To obey is better than sacrifice. 

He is the greatest conqueror who has conquered 
himself. 

A man of straw needs a woman of gold. 

Better the child cry than the mother sigh. 

He buys honey dear who has to lick it off thorns. 

What the fool does in the end the wise man does 
in the beginning. 



38 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

In prosperity caution, in adversity patience. 

One often has need of a lesser than oneself. 

Better once in heaven than ten times at the gate. 

More people are slain by suppers than by swords. 

Who has love in his heart has spurs in his sides. 

The joys of sense to mental joys are mean. 

Who paints me before blackens me behind. 

Wise men learn by other men's mistakes, fools by 
their own. 

He that falls into sin is a man ; that grieves at it, 
is a saint; that boasteth of it, is a devil. 

Complaisance. 

The true art of being agreeable is to appear rather 
to receive entertainment from others than to bring 
entertainment to them. 

Complaisance renders a superior amiable, an equal 
agreeable, and an inferior acceptable. 

Compliments. 

Compliments cost nothing, yet many pay dearly 
for them. 

In society, compliments are the loans which the 
lenders expect to be repaid with heavy interest. 

He who shoots compliments, unless he take good 
aim, may miss his mark, and be wounded by the 
recoil. 

Conceit. 

Conceit may puff a man up but never prop him up. 

Self-conceit indicates a small and narrow mind. 

A man pleased with himself likes not to hear an- 
other praised. 

The conceited man has one admirer who will 
never go back on him. 

Concentration. 

It is the men with one idea who have changed the 
face of the world by sticking to a simple aim. 



CONFIDENCE. 39 

He that hunts two hares at once will catch neither. 

With too many irons in the fire some will burn. 

Doing everything is doing nothing. 

The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one, 
will generally attain it. 

Success grows out of struggles to overcome diffi- 
culties. 

The important thing in life is to have a great aim 
and the determination to attain it. 

A healthy definite purpose is a remedy for a thou- 
sand ills. 

The evidence of superior genius is the power of 
intellectual concentration. 

Concentration begins with the habit of attention. 

People who have concentration never make ex- 
cuses. 

Mental shiftlessness is the cause for many a fail- 
ure. 

The world is full of unsuccessful men who have 
spent their lives letting down empty buckets into 
empty wells. 

Condemnation. 

Men condemn what they do not comprehend. 

Compound for sins they are inclined to by damn- 
ing those they have a mind to. 

Confession. 

Confession of a fault makes half amends. 
Confessions are good for the soul. 
A fault confessed is a fault redressed. 
A fault denied is twice committed. 

Confidence. 

If you confide in a friend you must always take 
care of that friendship. 

Confidence is of slow growth; it cannot be born 
in a day. 



40 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Confidence begets confidence. 
Trust him not who has once broken faith. 
Society is built upon confidence in the integrity of 
others. 

Conqueror. 

He is twice a conqueror who can restrain himself 
in the hour of victory. 

They conquer who believe they can. 

It is no small conquest to overcome yourself. 

Conscience. 

A guilty conscience needs no accuser. 

In matters of conscience first thoughts are best. 

Conscience doth make cowards of us all. 

Cowardice asks is it safe? 

To be a safe guide conscience must be enlightened 
by the spirit of God. 

A clear conscience is a soft pillow. 

He that loses his conscience has nothing left that 
is worth keeping. 

To live with no conscience is to live like a beast, 
To live with good conscience a perpetual feast. 

Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions 
are the voice of the body. 

A quiet conscience need never sneak. 

An evil conscience is always fearful and unquiet. 

Keep conscience clear, then never fear. 

Conscience does not teach us what is right; we 
learn that from experience. 

Conscientiousness. 

Conscientiousness is the underlying granite of life. 

When love of praise takes the place of praise- 
worthiness the defect is fatal. 

When a man is dead to the sense of right he is 
lost forever. 

The value of conscientiousness is principally seen 



CONTROVERSY. 41 

in the benefits of civilization. 

Conscientiousness is an inborn desire to do right. 

A well-trained life is filled with the light of con- 
science. 

Constancy. 

It is the foundation of all virtue. 

Without constancy there is no virtue, love or 
friendship in the world. 

Contempt. 

Contempt is the sharpest reproof, and is usually 
borne worse than real injury. 

Contempt makes the contemned feel smaller than 
anything else. 

Content. 

No tent so good to live in as content. 

A contented man is always rich. 

A contented mind is a continual feast. 

When one has not what one likes, one must like 
what one has. 

Enough is as good as a feast. 

Taking things as they come does not wear one out 
so fast as dodging them. 

If I have lost my ring I still have my finger. 

Better lose the anchor than the whole ship. 

Make the best and leave the rest. 

Content can rear a garden in a desert waste. 

Contentment is happiness, an inexhaustible treas- 
ure. 

Controversy. 

Nonsense can be defended but by nonsense. 
Arguing with a fool shows there are two. 
Fools, for arguments, use wagers. 
In too much controversy the truth is lost. 



42 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Corporations. 

Corporations have neither bodies to be kicked, nor 
souls to be damned. 

Corporations are soulless. 

Correction. 

Correction does much, but encouragement more. 

Encouragement after censure is the sun after a 
shower. 

Counsellors. 

In a multitude of counsellors there is safety. 
Seek a wise counsellor. 

Country. 

Go into the country to hear the news of the town. 
Thou, too, sail on, O ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all it fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
Courage. 

Conscience is the basis of courage. 
Intrepid courage is the fountain of victory. 
The brave man is not he who feels no fear, but 
whose noble soul subdues its fears and bravely dares 
the danger : thus is moral courage higher than physi- 
cal. 

A bold attempt is half success. 
A brave man is one who knows his danger and 
faces it. 

True courage in danger is half the battle. 
He is master of another man's life who is indif- 
ferent to his own. 

Looking a difficulty squarely in the face will often 
kill it. 

Faint heart ne'er won fair lady. 

A courageous man never wants weapons. 



COURTESY. 43 

Courage should be directed by skill, and skill 
armed with courage. 

The best hearts are always the bravest. 

In noble souls valor does not wait for years. 

Courage is always greatest when blended with 
meekness. 

A brave man hazards life, but not his conscience. 

A great deal of talent is lost in the world for want 
of a little courage. 

Court. 

Legal definition: A court is a place wherein jus- 
tice is judicially administered. 

Popular understanding : A court is a place where 
injustice is judicially administered. 

Courtesy. 

Nothing can constitute good breeding that has 
not good nature for its foundation. 

We can be amiable without being weak. 

True courtesy springs from genuine goodness. 

To be truly courteous one must think first of 
others, last of one's self. 

Let us not be so busy as to forget the gracious 
acts and delicate courtesies of everyday life. 

Conduct is three-fourths of life. 

There is .no policy like politeness. 

Life is not so short but there is time enough for 
courtesy. 

The courtesies of small and trivial character are 
the ones which strike deepest to the grateful and 
appreciating heart. 

The young owe due respect to their elders. 

Good manners constitute the proof of a noble 
character. 



44 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Courtship. 

Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes 
better than the dinner. 

The lass that has many wooers oft fares the worst. 

Covetousness. 

Covetousness is harder to cure than cancer. 

Grasp no more than thy hand will hold. 

He that grasps at too much holds nothing fast. 

Pour an ocean of melted gold down the throat of 
Avarice, and still its cry is, "Give, give." 

The miser dies that fools and lawyers may live. 

Nothing keeps the stingy man from stealing but 
the risks. 

Who hath and buries, increaseth worries; who 
hath and spends, enjoyment lends. 

Cowardice. 

A man that is cruel is a man that is cowardly. 

Many would be cowards if they had courage 
enough. 

The only beast we ought to beat is the man who 
beats his beast. 

Cowards are cruel, but the brave love mercy and 
delight to save. 

Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike. 

A timid person is frightened before a danger, a 
coward during the time, and a courageous person 
afterwards. 

Cranks. 

Cranks strive to convince you, instead of letting 
you convince them. 

Cranks move the world. 

Credit. 

Credit is better than ready money. 



CRITICISM. 45 

Who doesn't take care of his credit will soon have 
none to take care of. 

If your credit is found dead in the road some day, 
You may look for a murderer by the name of Bad 
Pay. 

Who sells upon credit has much custom but little 
money. 

Creditors have better memories than debtors. 
They are superstitious in their observance of set 
days and times. 
Crime. 

Fear is the punishment of crime. 

If poverty is the mother of crime, lack of sense 
is the father of it. 

The greater the man, the greater the crime. 

A fellow feeling may be a righteous thing, if he 
hasn't been feeling for your pocket-book. 

Criticism. 

Criticism is easy, art is difficult. 

God help the fool, said the idiot. 

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct. 

Said the kettle to the pan, "Stand aside, black 
man !" 

Criticisms are cut-throat bandits in the paths of 
fame. 

Every fool can find faults that the wise cannot 
remedy. 

Said the sieve to the needle, "You have a hole in 
your head." 

Other men's sins are before our eyes, our own 
behind our back. 

Too many neglect their own fields to weed the 
fields of others. 

Justly to discriminate, wisely to prescribe, and 
honestly to award, should be the aim of criticism. 

The severest critics are those who have never at- 



46 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

tempted or have failed in their literary undertaking. 
Crosses. 

Crosses are ladders which reach to heaven. 

Everyone bears his own cross, and thinks it the 
heavier. 

Cruelty. 

Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thou- 
sands mourn, but woman's inhumanity to woman 
makes countless millions mourn. 

Cunning. 

Cunning is the intensest rendering of vulgarity, 
absolute and utter. 

Cunning is associated with small and dull conceit, 
and with an absolute want of sympathy or affection. 

Cunning signifies especially a habit or gift of 
overreaching, accompanied with enjoyment and a 
sense of superiority. 
Curiosity. 

Like Lot's wife lots of wives. 

It is better to let sleeping dogs lie. 

Eve's vice was curiosity, the bane of her sex. 

There is the curiosity of interest and the curiosity 
of pride. 

Curiosity is the first and simplest action of the in- 
fant mind. 

Who minds his own business has no time to mind 
other folks'. 

He that pryeth into the clouds may be struck 
with a thunderbolt. 

Meddling much finds little to please; meddling 
little, friends and ease. 

Curses. 

Who curses, praises the devil. 

The lips that curse shall want bread. 



DANGER. 47 

Curses, like chickens, often come home to roost. 

Custom. 

Custom is often the antiquity of error. 

Follow the custom or leave the country. 

They only serve as reasons to the fool. 

Man yields to custom, as he bows to fate. 

Without reason custom is an ancient error. 

New customs, however ridiculous, are followed. 

Custom is the plague of wise men and the idol 
of fools. 

Men think according to their inclinations, speak 
according to their knowledge and opinions, but gen- 
erally act according to custom. 

Dancing. 

A ball room is the scene of moving beauty. 

People move easiest and most gracefully who 
dance well. 

Formerly dancing was a religious service, whereas 
now it is an active dissipation. 

Dandy. 

Nature sometimes makes a fool, but a coxcomb 
is always of his own making. 

Dandy is a thing that would be a young lady if he 
could, but as he can't, does all he can to show the 
world he's not a man. 

Danger. 

Danger precedes victory. 
A danger foreseen is half avoided. 
The danger past, and God forgotten. 
Beware of a silent dog and still water. 
A common danger produces unanimity. 
Better face a danger than to be always in fear. 
To be dexterous in danger is a virtue, but to court 
danger is folly. 



48 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Daughter. 

Some feelings are to mortals given 

With less of earth in them than Heaven ; 

And if there be a human tear 

From passion's dross refined and clear — 

A tear so limpid and so meek 

It would not stain an angel's cheek, 

"Tis that by pious father shed 

Upon a duteous daughter's head. 

Days. 

Thirty days hath September, April, June and No- 
vember ; 

Each of the rest has thirty-one. 

Except February alone, 

Which has but twenty-eight in fine, 

'Till Leap Year gives it twenty-nine. 

Death. 

'Tis not the whole of life to live, nor all of death 
to die. 

So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, we start, for soul 
is wanting there. 

By medicine life is prolonged, yet death will seize 
the doctor, too. 

Men may live like fools, but fools they cannot die. 

Death is simply the soul's change of residence, a 
commingling of eternity with time. 

Death is the golden key that opens the place of 
eternity. 

It is but the drooping of the flower that the fruit 
may mature. 

To live in hearts we leave behind us is not to die. 

We die as we live. 

In the midst of life we are in death. 

Act as if each day was thy last. 

Death cannot come untimely to him who is fit to 
die, for it matters not at what time the righteous 
fall asleep. 



DEBT. 49 

He who always serves his God is ready whenever 
He calls. 

He may cry, "Oh, death, where is thy sting? oh, 
grave, where is thy victory?" 

God does not lose us in the dust of death. 

Here tired Dissimulation drops her mask. 

People would not die so fast if they did not live 
so fast. 

The young may die ; the old must. 

For death is but a covered way 

That opens into light, 
Wherein no blinded child can stray 
Beyond the Father's sight. 

Death hath nothing terrible in it but what life 
hath made. 

Death has no advantage but when it comes as a 
stranger. 

If death be terrible, the fault is not in death, but 
in thee. 

Death cuts the saints down, but it cannot keep 
them down. 

There are no greater difficulties in connection with 
the resurrection than with the present life. 

I am the resurrection and the life: he that be- 
lieveth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall 
never die. 

There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
But one dead lamb is there ; 

There is no household, howsoe'er defended, 
But has one vacant chair. 
Debt. 

Live within your means. 

Debt is the worst poverty. 

He who pays his debts grows rich. 

A man in debt is caught in a net. 



SO WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Happy is the man that owes nothing. 

Better a paid porkchop than a turkey on tick. 

Better go to bed supperless than rise in debt. 

A small house is better than a large mortgage. 

Pay as you go is better than a large mortgage. 

Pay as you go is the philosopher's stone. 

It is hard to pay for bread that has been eaten. 

If you pay as you go what you're worth you'll 
know. 

Poor, without debt, is a softer pillow than that of 
any prince. 

He who more than he's worth doth spend, makes 
a rope his life to end. 

The only justification for debt is the immediate 
prospect of profit. 

He is sowing the seeds of sorrow who spends to- 
day what he earns to-morrow. 

Deceit. 

A false witness shall not be unpunished. 
It is easy to tell a lie, hard to tell but one. 
If others say how good you are, ask yourself if it 
is true. 

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy 
neighbor. 

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we 
practise to deceive! 

Treason doth never prosper ; what's the reason ? 
For if it prosper none dare call it treason. 
Judas, dost thou betray me with a kiss? 
Canst thou find hell about my lips ? and miss 
Of life, just at the gates of life and bliss? 
The wretch that often has deceived, 
Though truth he speaks, is ne'er believed. 
The surest way of making a dupe, is to let your 
victim suppose you are his. 



DEVIL 51 

Delay. 

Delays often have dangerous ends. 

This day is the best day of the year. 

God keep us from moaning, "Too late ! too late !" 

Where duty is plain delays are dangerous. 

Deliberation. 

Deliberating is not delaying. 

Forethink though you cannot fortell. 

A little forethought may save much after talk. 

Deliberate slowly, execute promptly. 

Delusion. 

The worst deluded are the self-deluded. 

The worst delusions are as necessary to our hap- 
piness as realities. 

When our vices quit us, we flatter ourselves that 
we have left them. 

Desire. 

First deserve, then desire. 

The wish is parent to the thought. 

He has no wants who has no desire. 

Lack of desire is the greatest of riches. 
Destiny. 

That which must be will be. 

Man proposes, but God disposes. 

We make destiny the scapegoat of our follies and 
vices, the dark apology for every error. 
Despair. 

Despair defies even despotism. 
Despair is the gateway to insanity. 
To doubt and despond invite failure. 
Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity 
of heaven. 

Devil. 

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 



52 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. 

The devil can cite Scripture to suit his purpose. 

Better keep the de'il out than turn him out. 

Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walk- 
eth about, seeking whom he may devour. 
Devotion. 

Prayer is the gate of Heaven. 

The secret heart is devotion's temple. 

The sighs of the penitent reach Heaven, when 
pealed hymns often are scattered by the winds. 

Diet. 

Hunger is the best sauce. 

Health is better than wealth. 

God sends meat, and the devil sends cooks. 

God cures and the doctor takes the fee. 

He that wants health wants everything. 
. Eat little at dinner, less at supper, sleep aloft, and 
you will live long. 

Difficulties. 

Difficulties test your capacity. 

Difficulty is a severe instructor. 

It is hard to swim against the current. 

It is difficult for an empty bag to stand upright. 

It is hard to suffer wrong and then pay for it. 

It is difficult to be high and yet humble. 

The greatest difficulties lie where we do not ex- 
pect them. 

Difficulty strengthens the mind, as labor the body. 

He who wrestles with us strengthens our nerves 
and sharpens our skill. 

Diligence. 

Employment is Nature's physician. 
Constant occupation prevents temptation. 
Diligence in all things is the strongest fulcrum 
of success. 



DISCONTENT. S3 

If thou hast gathered nothing in thy youth, how 
canst thou find anything in thine age ? 

The world is full of beauty, 
As brighter worlds above; 
And if we do our duty 
It might be full of love. 
The consciousness of duty performed gives us 
music at midnight. 

Discussion. 

Reply with wit to gravity, and with gravity to wit. 

He who is not open to conviction is not quali- 
fied for discussion. 

Give him credit for all argument you know you 
can answer, and slur over those you feel you cannot. 

Disappointments. 

Oft expectation fails where most it promises. 
The disappointments of manhood succeed the de- 
lusions of youth. 

The shores of existence are strewn with failures. 

Disparagement. 

It is absurd for a man to depreciate himself. 

A man should never tell tales of himself to his 
own disadvantage. 

Discontent. 

The present is the worst. 

Discontent is the want of self-reliance. 

Few things are more miserable than discontent. 

The remedy for discontent is to count our mer- 
cies. 

Discontent arises more from our desires than from 
our wants. 

No man was ever discontented with this world 
who did his duty in it. 



54 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Discretion. 

An ounce of discretion is worth a pound of wit. 
Discretion in speech is more than eloquence. 

Disease. 

A disease known is half cured. 
The remedy is often worse than the disease. 
Half of our maladies come from the neglect of 
the body and overwork of the brain. 

Doubt. 

Who doubts, errs not. 

The vain man is generally a doubter. 

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the 
good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. 

I hold it cowardice to rest mistrustful where a 
noble heart hath pawned an open hand in sign of 
love. 

Doctors. 

An ape may chance sit amongst the doctors. 

Go not to the doctor for every ail, nor to the 
pitcher for every thirst. 

If the doctor cures the sun sees it, but if he kills 
the earth hides it. 

Someone said he didn't see how doctors could 
meet without laughing in each other's faces. 

Dogmatism. 

Dogmatism is arrogance in opinion. 
Dogmatism is puppyism arrived at maturity. 
Dreams. 

The relations of time and space are annihilated, 
and the most glaring anachronisms exist in dreams. 

They display boundless imagination. 

Who can tell what a dream is? 

They are the offspring of late eating and indi- 
gestion. 



DRUNKENNESS. 55 

Pudding is the stuff that makes dreams. 
Poor wretches, who depend on greatness' favor, 
dream as I have done, awake, and find nothing. 
Let not our disturbed dreams affect our souls. 

Dress. 

Good clothes open all doors. 

Fashion wears out more apparel than the man. 

He is best dressed whose dress no one observes. 

Loveliness is, when unadorned, adorned the most. 

The nickel-plating gives no power to the engine. 

New shoes never squeak but in walking down a 
church aisle. 

The possession of clean linen gives moral 
strength. 

Birds with bright plumage do not always make 
good pie. 

Only a known rich man can afford to wear a 
shabby coat. 

If thou are clean and warm, it is sufficient; for 
more doth rob the poor and please the wantons. 

Fond pride of dress is sure a dreadful curse; it 
shows an empty head, and makes an empty purse. 

Eat to please thyself; dress to please others. 
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy. 
But not expressed in fancy ; rich, not gaudy ; 
For the apparel oft proclaims the man. 
Drunkenness. 

Satan's palace — the gin palace. 

Ardent spirits are evil spirits. 

Whisky drinking is risky drinking. 

Where there is. drink there is danger. 

Wine has drowned more men than water. 

The best side of a public house is the outside. 

There is a devil in every berry of the grape. 

More have been drowned in the bowl than in the 
sea. 



56 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

First the distiller, then the doctor, then the under- 
taker. 

Drink injures a man externally, internally and 
eternally. 

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and 
whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. 

Thousands drink themselves to death before one 
dies of thirst. 

Drinking water neither makes a man sick, nor in 
debt, nor his wife a widow. 

The best cure for drunkenness is while sober to 
see a drunken man. 

Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths 
to steal away their brains ! 

Drunkenness turns a man out of himself, and 
leaves a beast in his room. 

He who quarrels with a drunken man injures one 
who is absent. 

Drunkenness calls off the watchman from their 
towers. 

Whiskey is an excellent thing for preserving a 
corpse. 

Drunkenness robs men of reason, reputation and 
property, and renders them unfit for human society, 
degrading them below beasts. 

When a man strives to convince you that he is 
sober, you may rest assured that he is half drunk. 

A drunkard is a true philosopher, for he thinks 
that the world goes round. 

Drunkenness ruins health, injures the mind and 
unmans men. 

Dupe. 

The head is always the dupe of the heart. 
The best way to make a man your dupe is to lead 
him to suppose he has fooled you. 



EARLY RISING. 57 

Duty. 

Pray devoutly, and hammer stoutly. 
The path of duty is the way to glory. 
Duty, by habit, is to pleasure turned. 
God helps the sailor, but he must row. 
There is not a moment without some duty. 
A sense of duty pursues us ever and everywhere. 
If everyone would mend one, all would be 
amended. 

I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty ; 
I woke, and found that life was Duty. 

If each would sweep before his own door we 
should have a clean street. 

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 

So near is God to man, 
When duty whispers low, "Thou must," 

The youth replies, "I can." 

Practise in life what thou prayest for, and leave 
the rest to God. 

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in 
that faith let us dare to do our duty as we under- 
stand it. 

He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in 
the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have 
forgotten its cause. 

Early Rising. 

Early rest makes early rising sure. 

The morning hour has gold in its mouth. 

The energetic man and his bed are soon parted. 

Arise with the lark, but avoid larks in the evening. 

The early riser is healthy, cheerful and industri- 
ous. 

Rise early and you will observe; labor, and you 
will have. 



58 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

He who doth not rise early never does a good 
day's work. 

Early to rise and late to bed, lifts again the 
debtor's head. 

He who rises late may run all day and not over- 
take his business. 

Early to bed and early to rise, make a man 
healthy, wealthy and wise. 

He that would thrive must arise at five, he that 
has thriven may lie until seven. 

Nature gives six hours' sleep, custom seven, lazi- 
ness nine, and wickedness eleven. 

Earnestness. 

Earnestness is the soul of work. 

Victory belongs to the most energetic. 

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason. 

To impress others we must be earnest. 

The real difference between men is energy. 

What you want in earnest you will get. 

Earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties. 

Without earnestness no man executes great things. 

Earnestness is the soul of work; there is no sub- 
stitute for it. 

Without earnestness no man executes great things, 
things. 

Earnestness gives brain and is the source of men- 
tal power. 

Earnestness gives endurance, overcomes pain, 
strengthens weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope 
and lightens difficulties. 

Things come easier when you try your level best. 

Eccentricities. 

Eccentricities may attend genius, but they are 
blemishes. 

Even beauty cannot palliate eccentricities. 



EDUCATION. 59 

Economy. 

A good driver turns in a small space. 

He who begins and does not finish loses his labor. 

Take care to be an economist in prosperity ; there 
is no fear of your being one in adversity. 
Little by little he got to be rich, 
By saving of candle-ends and "sich." 

Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink 
a great ship. 

Get all you can and what you get hold. 

Economy is the philosopher's stone that turns all 
to gold. 

One's never rich until he commences 
To keep ahead of his expenses. 

Better the house too small one day than too large 
the rest of the year. 

'Tis too late to spare when the pocket is bare. 

The sole sign of being in his senses is learning to 
reduce one's expenses. 

Nothing is cheap which is superfluous. 

What one does not need is dear at any price. 

Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take 
care of themselves. 

Economy is half the battle of life. 
Education. 

Every man stamps his value on himself. 

No capital earns such interest as personal culture. 

Education is the chief defense of nations. 

One of the best effects of thorough intellectual 
training is a knowledge of our capacities. 

Knowledge planted in youth giveth shade in old 
age. 

Even to rebuild the temple the school must not be 
closed. 

The ass is not learned, though he be loaded with 
books, 



60 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Education begins with life. The end of education 
is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind ; to 
train it to use its own powers, rather than to fill it 
with the accumulation of others. 

One great object of education is repression, self- 
control, discipline of the feelings. 

Observation more than books, experience rather 
than persons, are the prime educators. 

Education is the leading or drawing out of the 
mental powers. 

Instruction ends in the school room, but education 
ends only with life. 

Without morality, educated men become devils. 

Learning and laths will never build walls, 
Unless there be something to nail to. 

Live to learn and you will learn to live. 

Who knows he knows nothing knows much. 

There is no royal road to learning. 

It is a pity those who taught us to talk could not 
have taught us when to hold our tongues. 

'Tis education forms the common mind, just as 
the twig is bent the tree's inclined. 

What sculpture is to a block of marble education 
is to the soul. 

An investment in knowledge always pays high 
interest. 

Education is a companion which no misfortune 
can depress, no crime destroy, no enemy alienate, no 
disposition enslave. 

Education is a better safeguard of liberty than 
many regiments of soldiers. 

Education gives fecundity of thought, copiousness 
of illustration, quickness, vigor, fancy, words and 
illustrations. 

Egotism. 

Egotism is the offspring of vanity. 



EMULATION. 61 

Christian piety destroys egotism; worldly polite- 
ness represses and veils it. 

Never speak well nor ill of yourself. If well, men 
will not believe you; if ill, they will believe a great 
deal more than you say. 

Elevator. 

The elevator boy helps many people to rise in the 
world. 
Eloquence. 

Orators, like poets, are born, not made. 

Eloquence cannot be brought from afar, 
It cannot be taught in the schools. 

Eloquence must exist, if it exist at all, in the man, 
in the subject, and in the occasion. 

True eloquence consists of saying just enough. 

Brevity improves eloquence, action is its life. 

Employment. 

The highest prize of life, the crowning fortune of 
man, is to be born to some pursuit which finds him 
employment and happiness; whether it be to make 
baskets or broadswords, or carols or songs. 

Pleasure soon exhausts us and itself also, but en- 
deavor never does. 

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him 
ask no other blessedness. 

Emulation. 

Emulation seeks merit that she may exalt herself 
by victory. Competition of two or more for the 
same thing. 

The oak that so spreadeth its branches towards 
the heavens was once but an acorn in the bowels of 
the earth. 

Endeavor to be first in thy calling whatever it 
may be. 



62 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Let no one go before thee in well doing; never- 
theless do not envy the merits of another, but im- 
prove thine own talents. 

Encouragement. 

Nothing so inspires with courage, hope and confi- 
dence as encouragement. 

What heart of man is proof against applause? 
Applause is the spur of noble minds. It incites to 
greater deeds. It rouses ; it strengthens. It impels 
man to do his very best. 

Enemies. 

An enemy does not sleep. 

Every one carries an enemy in his own breast. 

A quarrel in an enemy's house is refreshing. 

One enemy can do more harm than ten friends 
can benefit you. 

If you desire enemies excel others. 

Better an open enemy than a false friend. 

Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of 
you. 

Every man has enemies of whom he is proud. 

The man that makes a character makes foes. 

To love an enemy is the greatest proof of true 
piety. 
He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to 

spare, 
He who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere. 

He's on his guard who knows his enemy. 
Enthusiasm. 

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusi- 
asm. 

Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth 
accomplishes no victories without it. 

Every great and commanding movement in the 
annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm. 

A true man is earnest, therefore enthusiastic. 



ENVY. 63 

Christianity is the enthusiasm of humanity. 

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm. 

Enthusiasm is a fundamental quality of strong 
souls. 

The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity 
is that he gives himself for a principle. 

Enthusiasm is the romance of the boy that be- 
comes the heroism of the man. 

Enthusiasm is life lit up and shining. 

Enthusiasm is the element of success in every- 
thing. 

Enthusiasm makes weak men strong and timid 
women courageous. 

Gladstone says that what is really wanted is to 
light up the spirit that is in the boy. 

Every production of genius owes its origin to it. 

Envy. / 

He who envies another admits his own inferiority.'' 

Better the envy of enemies than the pity of 
friends. 

Envy has no other quality than to detract from 
virtue. 

Envy is a passion full of shame, which nobody ac- 
knowledges. 

Every other sin has some pleasure with it, or will 
admit of some excuse. 

If on a sudden he begins to rise, no man who lives 
can count his enemies. 

Envy hates the excellence it cannot reach. 

Envy is a kind of praise. 

Live as far above envy as ever you can, 
For better a dog than an envious man. 

The surest proof of being endowed with noble 
qualities is to be free from envy. 
Envy shoots at others but hits itself. 



64 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

The greatest mischief you can do the envious is 
to do well. 

Envy slayeth the silly ones. 

Envy is the rottenness of the bones. 

Envy is blind, and knows nothing except to de- 
preciate the excellencies of others. 

The envious man waxeth lean with the fatness of 
his neighbor. 

Envy assails the noblest as the winds howl 'round 
the highest peak. 
Error. 

We are liable to make mistakes, but the other fel- 
low blunders. 

It is natural to blame other persons for our mis- 
takes. 

Errors are not so much false statements as partial 
ones. 

It is much easier to meet with error than to find 
truth ; error is on the surface, and can be more easily 
met with ; truth is hid in great depths, and the way 
to seek it does not appear to all the world. 

To err is human, to forgive divine. 

Men err from selfishness, women because they are 
weak. 

Eternity. 

Eternity is a circle running into itself, whose cen- 
tre is always, and circumference nowhere. 

Eternity is a beginning, continuing, never ending, 
always beginning. 

Eternity to the godly is a day that has no sun- 
setting; but eternity to the wicked is a night that 
has no sun-rising. 

A sound head, an honest heart and an humble 
spirit are the best guides to eternity. 

The thought of life that ne'er shall cease has 
something in it like despair. 



EXAMPLE. 65 

Time flies, death urges, heaven invites, hell 
threatens. 

He who takes truth for his guide and duty for his 
end may safely trust to God's providence to lead 
him aright. 

Evidence. 

One eye-witness is better than ten hearsays. 

Hearsay evidence is inadmissible, except as to 
reputation. 

Evil. 

A wicked man is his own hell. 

Evil to him who evil thinks. 

There is no peace for the wicked. 

The heart can ne'er a transport know which never 
feels a pang. 

Evil communications corrupt good manners. 

The good are better made by ill, 
As odors diffused are sweeter still. 

Of two evils choose neither, if you can help it. 

The wicked shun the light, as the devil the cross. 

Every bad man secretly respects the good. 

If you associate with the wicked, you will soon 
resemble them. 

Bad mind, bad heart. 

The fear of evil exceeds the ills we dread. 

Depart from evil and do good. 

The evil that men do lives after them, the good is 
often interred with their bones. 

We all have sufficient fortitude to bear the ills of 
another. 

Example. 

Example is better than precept. 

Example is the softest and least invidious way of 
commanding. 



66 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

We reform others unconsciously when we act up- 
rightly. 

A godly life is the strongest argument you can 
offer the sceptic. 

It is a good preacher who follows his own instruc- 
tions. 

If you would lift me you must be on higher 
ground. 

A good example is the best sermon. 

Better an ounce of example than a pound of ad- 
vice. 

Christ never wrote a tract, but He went about 
doing good. 

He who lives well is the best preacher. 

Preachers can talk but never teach, 
Unless they practice what they preach. 

It is generally safer to follow a man's advice than 
his example. Bad examples are worse than crimes. 
Excellence. 

There is no excellence without great labor. 
Excuses. 

A poor excuse is worse than none. 

He that does amiss never lacks excuse. 

Any excuse will serve when one has not a mind 
to do a thing. 

The archer that shoots ill has a lie ready. 

He that excuses himself accuses himself. 

A bad workman always complains of his tools. 

One good at making excuses is good for nothing 
else. 

Excuses are worse than lies ; they are lies guarded. 

That which is customary requires no excuse. 

Do not accuse others in order to excuse thyself, 
for it is neither generous nor fair. 

An unasked excuse infers transgression. 



EXPERIENCE. 67 

Expenditure. 

Always taking out of the meal tub and never 
putting in soon comes to the bottom. 

A light purse makes a heavy heart. 

Pay quickly what thou owest. The needy trades- 
man is made glad by such considerate haste. 

Pay duly also those other petty gifts, the letter, 
or the visit, or the gift. 

He that buys what he does not want must often 
sell what he does want. 

A bad thing is dear at any price. 

He that has but four and spends five has no need 
of a purse. 

What costs little is little esteemed. 

Cut your coat according to your cloth. 

Experience. 

Experience is the best teacher; it is the father of 
wisdom. 

What you learn to your cost you remember long. 

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will 
learn in no other. 

Of all history the most instructive to a man is his 
own. 

Experience is the father of wisdom, and memory 
the mother. 

Even the fool is wise after the event. 

He that has lived near the woods is not frightened 
by owls. 

He must be a thorough fool who can learn noth- 
ing from his own folly. 

Experience joined to common sense 
To mortals is a providence. 

Dexterity comes by experience. 

Experience is a safe guide. 

Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mis- 
takes. 



68 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Experience is the test of wisdom, and is the great 
baffler of speculation. 

Experience without learning is better than learn- 
ing without experience. 

Extravagance. 
A fat kitchen makes a lean will. 

Who spends before he thrives 
Will beg before he dies. 

Wilful waste brings woful want. 

He that hath it and will not keep it, 
He that wants it and will not seek it, 
He that drinks and is not dry, 
Shall want money as well as I. 

Extremes. 

Burn not your house to frighten the mice. 
It is not the burden, but the overburden, that kills 
the beast. 

Too far east is west. 
Run not from one extreme to the other. 
Avoid extrems and shun the fault of such 
Who still are pleased too little or too much. 
Avoid extremes which often meet. 

Eyes. 

Two eyes see more than one. 

A chaste eye checks licentious looks. 

The eyes are the windows of the soul. 

An evil eye can see no good. 

True eyes are too pure and honest in aught to 
disguise the sweet soul shining through them. 

One of the most wonderful things in nature is a 
glance of the eye ; it transcends speech. 

If the eye do not admire the soul will not desire. 

Trust the eye rather than the ear. 



FAITH. 69 

Facts. 

From principle is obtained probability, but truth 
is obtained from facts only, which are stubborn 
things. 

A single fact is worth a shipload of argument. 

Facts are more powerful than words. 

One fact is stronger than twenty texts. 

Failure. 

Failure is success to thee if thou could'st read all 
truth. 

The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of 
cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best. 

In the lexicon of youth there's no such word as 
fail. 

The determined man succeeds where others fail. 

Faith. 

Faith lights the path to Heaven. 

Faith is a higher faculty than reason. 

God pleadeth with the deaf, as having ear to hear. 

Let bigots fight for creeds, the good man hath the 
right one. 

Live truly and thy life shall be a great and noble 
creed. 

He does not believe that does not live according 
to his belief. 

Faith is the substance of things hoped for — the 
evidence of things not seen. 

The saddest thing that can befall a man is for 
him to lose faith in God. 

Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death. 

Belief is the rudder by which life's ship is steered. 

The man who believes is the man who achieves. 

Christian faith is the soul's anchor. It is the root 
of all blessings ; believe, and you shall be saved. 
Who neither believes in heaven or hell, 
The devil heartily wishes well. 



70 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Faith is the image of eternity. 
He who believes only what he can fully compre- 
hend must have a long head or a very short need. 
He who believes is the one who achieves. 

Faults. 

He is lifeless that is faultless. 

The first faults are theirs that commit them; the 
second, theirs that permit them. 

No man is born without faults, but he is best who 
has the fewest. 

If the best man's faults were written on his fore- 
head he would pull down his hat. 

Bad men excuse their faults; good men abandon 
them. 

Nothing is easier than fault-finding. 

What if the sun has spots on it ? 

A fault denied is twice committed. 

A fault confessed is half redressed. 

We confess to our little faults, only that we may 
conceal thereby our greater ones. 

It is a greater merit to overcome faults than to be 
exempt from them. 

Every one is on the lookout for his neighbor's 
faults. 

It is a greater merit to overcome faults than to be 
excempt from them. 

Faults of the head are punished in this world; 
faults of the heart in the future. 

Condemn the fault, but not him who commits it. 

A man will confess his faults, but never his 
follies. 

Men have many faults, poor women have but 
two. There's nothing good they say and nothing 
right they do. 



FALSEHOOD. 71 

Faithfulness. 

The secret of success in life is for a man to be 
faithful to all his duties and obligations. 

The truest test of civilization is not the census, nor 
the size of the cities, nor the crops ; but the kind of 
men the country turns out. 

As the old birds sing the young ones twitter. 

A good man seen, tho' silent, counsel gives : 
The touch'd spectator wishes to be wise. 

When you obey your superior you instruct your 
inferior. 

Honesty is exact to a penny. 

Faithfulness is the soul of goodness. 

That which we love most in men and women is 
faithfulness. 

Faithfulness in the daily routine of school work 
has laid the foundation of many a noble character. 

I've alwaysy noticed that success 
Is mixed with troubles, more or less, 
And it's the man who does the best 
Who gets more kicks than all the rest. 

Falsehood. 

Falsehood offends God and injures man. 

The lie of fear is the refuge of cowardice, and the 
lie of fraud is the device of the cheat. 

Half a fact is a whole falsehood. 

Equivocation is first cousin to a lie. 

A little lying is a dangerous thing ; go your whole 
length or never make the spring. 

None but cowards lie. 

Liars should have good memories. 

A great talker is usually a good liar. 

A lie will go around the world while truth is 
pulling on its boots. 

The man who cannot lie is dead. 



72 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Falsehood is the devil's daughter and speaks her 
father's tongue. 

Many men would do less lying if their wives 
didn't ask so many infernal questions. 

Sin has many tools, but lying fits a handle to all. 

Liars are an abomination unto the Lord. 

It is difficult to tell the exact truth, even about 
yourself. 

Lying is the cause of all the crimes in the world. 

He who tells a lie knows not how great a task 
he undertakes, for he may be compelled to invent 
twenty more to maintain one. 

Fame. 

Death makes no conquest of this conqueror, 
For now he lives in fame, though not in life. 

Fame is an accident usually discovered only by 
epitaphs, — a post-mortem tribute to a man's worth. 

He lives in fame who died in virtue's cause. 

You can prove your fame by being praised by 
good men or by being abused by rogues. 

One crowded hour of virtuous life is worth an 
age without a name. 

Familiar Phrases. 

He's in clover. 

He has given him leg bail. 

To find a mare's nest. 

To catch a Tartar. 

To run a wild goose chase. 

His bread is buttered on both sides. 

He pins his faith on another man's sleeve. 

I have other fish to fry. 

Out of the frying pan into the fire. 

Go farther and fare worse. 

You measure everyone's corn in your own bushel. 

I can see as far into the millstone as he that picks 
it. 



FATE. 73 

To kill two birds with one stone. 

He has waked up the wrong passenger. 

To take the wrong pig by the ear. 

Do unto others as they would do to you, but do it 
first. 

Do others, or they'll do you. 

He is put to bed with a shovel, i. e., buried. 

I would trust him no farther than I could fling a 
bull by the tail. 

God send you more wit and me more money. 

Familiarity. 

Familiarity breeds contempt. 

A thing too much seen is little prized. 

All objects lose by close inspection. 

Great men grow less as you approach them. 

Fanaticism. 

Fanaticism is the offspring of false zeal and super- 
stition, the father of intolerance and persecution. 

Fanaticism disqualifies a man for the duties of 
life. 

Fashion. 

Avoid singularity in your attire. 

Be not too early in fashion, nor too long out of it. 

Fashion is the science of appearances, and inspires 
one with the desire to seem rather than to be. 

To be happy is of far less consequence to the 
votaries of fashion than to appear so. 

While this world lasts fashion will rule. 

Fate. 

Fate, defined invincible necessity. There is no 
such thing. 

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining, 
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining. 
Thy fate is the common fate of all ; 



74 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Into each life some rain must fall, 
Some days must be sad and dreary. 

What must be shall be. 

Fate is the friend of the good, the guide of the 
wise, the tyrant of the foolish, the enemy of the 
bad. 
Father. 

Often the father a saint and the son a devil. 

A father's best virtue is his son's inheritance. 

A son's best inheritance is his father's virtue. 

A man soon learns how little he knows when a 
child begins to ask questions. 

A father maintains ten children better than ten 
children maintain one father. 

Favor. 

Grace will last; favor will blast. 

It is conferring a kindness to deny at once a favor 
which you intend to refuse. 
Fear. 

He who fears to suffer, suffers from fear. 

The fear of God alone saves us from the fear of 
man. 

He that handles a nettle tenderly is soonest stung. 

Our fears are always more numerous than our 
dangers. 

The water hath perils, but no man is able 
To learn how to swim on his library table. 
Let terrors come ; one good remains to cheer ; 
We fear the Lord, and scorn all other fear. 

Fear is the graveyard of prosperity. 

Our fears are always more numerous than our 
dangers. 

Fear guides more to duty than gratitude. 

Concealed cowards insult known ones. 

Fear is the tax which conscience pays to guilt. 



FINERY. 75 

Half our fears are baseless, and the other half dis- 
creditable. 

Foolish fear doubleth danger. 

Fear is worse than the pestilence. 

Of all base passions fear is most accursed. 

Good men have the fewest fears. 

Fee. 

Fee simple and simple fee, and all the fees in tail, 
are nothing when compared to thee, thou best of 
fees, female. 
Feeling. 

Thought is deeper than all language; feeling 
deeper than all thought. 

In religion, faith does not spring out of feeling, 
but feeling out of faith. 

Fiction. 

Most fiction gives a distaste for solid reading. 

Fiction dissipates the mind and weakens memory. 

Fiction gives false ideas of life and its duties. 

The most influential and popular books are works 
of fiction, as they rarify the lessons of life in an at- 
tractive form. 

Man is a poetical animal and delights in fiction. 

Fidelity. 

The glory of a servant is fidelity. 

Fidelity is three-fourths of success in business. 

Fidelity is the sister of justice; her words are 
bonds, her oaths are oracles. 

Let a man believe you suspect his fidelity and he 
will soon verify your opinion. 

Were man but constant, he were perfect ; that one 
error fills him with faults. 

Finery. 

All that glistens is not gold. 



76 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Gilded tombs do worms infold. 
Firmness. 

Firmness is a noble quality, but it often degen- 
erates into obstinacy. 

Firmness not guided by sound judgment and 
humility becomes obstinacy. 

Gentleness is a concomitant of firmness. 

Flattery. 

When you have business with a man of business, 
give him title enough. 

Flattery sits in the parlor while plain dealing is 
kicked out of doors. 

Flattery is sweet food to those who can swallow it. 
Many who would fight if offered a bribe may be 
flattered into jumping off a house. 

He who attempts to flatter you evidently takes 
you to be a fool. 

Men find it more easy to flatter than to praise. 
Flattery is the food of fools, yet now and then 
your men of wit will condescend to take a bit. 
A few profess to despise flattery. 
When flatterers meet the devil goes to dinner. 
Beware of flattery, 'tis a flowery weed 
Which offends the very idol, Vice, 
Whose shrine it would perfume. 
Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise. 
Flatterers are like cats that lick and then scratch. 
"Tis an old maxim in the schools, 
That flattery is the food of fools. 
Flowers. 

Flowers are the poetry of earth, as stars are the 
poetry of Heaven. 

A simple flower may be shelter for a troubled soul. 

No flower can bloom in Paradise that is not trans- 
planted from Gethsemene. 



FOOL. 77 

Folly. 

Folly as it grows in years 
The more extravagant appears. 
A man's follies are his worst foes. 
Keep them secret. 
Folly brings want and sadness. 
The follies of youth bring repentance in old age. 

Food. 

One meal a day suffices for a lion, and ought to be 
enough for a man. 

Regimen is better than physic. 

We eat double the quantity nature requires. 

Bread is the staff of life. 

Half a loaf is better than no bread. 

Feasting is the doctor's harvest. 

Light suppers make long days. 

Fool. 

Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit ? There 
is more hope of a fool than of him. 

A fool can ask more questions in an hour than 
seven wise men can answer in a year. 

All asses do not go on four feet. 

If you would not see a fool, shut yourself up in 
your room and break your looking glass. 

If all fools wore white caps we would look like a 
flock of geese. 

A fool's heart is in his tongue ; but a wise man's 
tongue is in his heart. 

Who is a fool and makes not confession 
Walks at the head of the fools' procession. 
A man may admit he is a fool, but will make it 
hot for the fellow that arrives at the same conclu- 
sion. 

All the fools are not dead yet. 

Fools, like the poor, we have always with us. 



78 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

The higher the ape goes the more he shows his 
tail. 

There is no need to fasten a bell to a fool. 
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. 
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. 
A fool and his money are soon parted. 
A fool is a man that is wise too late. 

Forbearance. 

There is a limit where forbearance ceases to be a 
virtue. 

Foppery. 

Foppery is never cured; it is the bad stamina of 
the mind, which, like those of the body, are never 
rectified; once a coxcomb always a coxcomb. 

Foresight. 

Never cross a bridge before you reach it, nor hal- 
loo before you are out of the woods. 

To bear the worst oft cures the worst. 

Foresight is better than hard work. 

If our foresight were as good as our hindsight we 
should never err. 

Forethought. 

Forethought saves much unavailing afterthought. 

In life, as in chess, forethought wins. 

Submit to small present ill to obtain future good. 

Few things are brought to a happy issue by im- 
petuous desire, but much by calm and prudent fore- 
thought. 

Forgiveness. 

To err is human, to forgive divine. 

Most men are willing to forgive their enemies 
whom they cannot whip. 

I am loath to think the man is living 
That feels not better for forgiving. 



FORTUNE. 79 

Forgiveness to the injured does belong, 

But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong. 

To return evil for good is devilish ; good for good, 
human; good for evil, divine. 

The highest charity is charity toward the unchari- 
table. 

A good word for a bad one is worth much and 
costs little. 

Lord, grant I may not have to live 
With natures than cannot forgive. 

Only the brave know how to forgive. 

The offender never pardons. 

All men are willing to forgive as soon as they 
have had a chance to get even. 

Cowards never forgive. 

Vicious minds abound with anger and revenge, 
and are incapable of forgiveness. 

Forgetting a wrong is a mild revenge. 

Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, and the 
cost of hatred. 

Fortitude. 

Resolute endurance — superior to courage. 

It is easier to assault a bridge courageously than 
with fortitude to hold it without firing a shot; 
harder to bear than to do. 

The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear, 

Shall never sag with doubt, nor shake with fear. 
Fortress. 

The fortress that parleys soon surrenders. 
Fortune. 

Every man is said to be the architect of his own 
fortune. 

Fortune knocks at every man's door once in a 
lifetime — sometimes not very hard. 



80 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

It requires greater virtues to support good than 
bad fortune. 

There are some men who are fortune's favorites, 
and who, like cats, alight forever upon their feet. 

Fox. 

When the fox preaches beware of your geese. 

Fraud. 

Fraud requires delay and intervals of guilt. 
Fraud and deceit are always in haste. 
Fraud is the resort of weakness and cunning. 

Freeman. 

He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, and 
all are slaves beside. 

Friendship. 

Real friendship is a slow grower, and never 
thrives unless engrafted upon a stock of known and 
reciprocal merit. 

Never contract a friendship with a man that is not 
better than thyself. 

A true friend is forever a friend. 

The greatest blessing is a true friend. 

Treat your friend as if some day he will become 
your enemy. 

A friend in need is a friend indeed. 

A treacherous friend is a most dangerous foe. 

A rich friend is a treasure and a table friend 
changeable. 

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few. 

Fortune makes friends, misfortune tries them. 

In time of prosperity friends will be plenty, 
In time of adversity not one amongst twenty. 

The day I break my faith with friends, 
That day my right to friendship ends. 



FRIENDSHIP. 81 

A man that hath friends must show himself 
friendly. 

Without a friend, this world is a wilderness. 

Defend me from my friends, I can defend myself 
from my enemies. 

An open foe may prove a curse, 
But a pretended friend is worse. 

The best of friends must part. 

Value the friendship of him who stands by you 
in storms. Swarms of insects will surround you in 
sunshine. 

To suspect a friend is worse than to be deceived 
by him. 

No friend is a friend until he shall have proved a 
friend. 

True friendship, like sound health, is seldom 
valued until it be lost. 

Friends are like melons, shall I tell you why ? 
To find one good you must a hundred try. 

True friends visit us in prosperity only when in- 
vited, but in adversity they come without invitation. 

Better friends can no man have than those whom 
God hath given. 

He is my friend that helps me, and not he that 
pities me. 

There is a friend that sticketh closer than a 
brother. 

Absence strengtheneth friendship where the last 
recollections were kindly. 

The best way to represent to life the manifold uses 
of friendship is to cast, and see how many things 
one cannot do for one's self. 

Heaven gives us friends, to bless the present scene, 

Removes them, to prepare us for the next. 

Friendship made in a moment is of no moment. 



82 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Before you make a friend, eat a peck of salt with 
him. 

The qualities of your friends will be those of your 
enemies: cold friends, cold enemies; half friends, 
half enemies ; warm enemies, fervid friends. 

What is friendship but a name ? 
A shade that follows wealth or fame : 
A charm that lulls to sleep 
And leaves the wretch to weep. 

Frugality. 

Industry and frugality produce wealth. 

The world has not yet learned the riches of fru- 
gality. 

Frugality is founded on the principle that all 
riches have limits. 

He that is extravagant will quickly become poor, 
and poverty will enforce dependence and invite cor- 
ruption. 

Frugality is the mother of all virtues and their 
sure guardian. 

Frugality comes too late when all is spent. 

Frugality is the daughter of prudence, the sister 
of temperance, and the parent of liberty. 

Habits of industry are a fair estate. 

He that spareth in everything is a niggard, or 
hopelessly insane. 

Futurity. 

God hides from us the mysteries of the future life. 
Divines but peep on undiscovered worlds, 
And draw the distant landscape as they please ; 
But who has e'er returned from those bright regions 
To tell their manners or relate their laws? 

Gains. 

There are no gains without pains; then help, 
hands, for I have no lands. 



GENTLEMAN. 83 

Gallantry. 

Diffidence and awkwardness destroy love. 

Gallantry consists in saying to females agreeable 
things in an agreeable manner. 

Gambling. 

Some play for game, some to pass away the time. 

Gambling is to obtain money without giving an 
equivalent. 

The best throw of the dice is to throw them away. 

Young gambler, old beggar. 

Gambling is the son of avarice and the father of 
despair. 

Gambling is the path to suicide. 

A pack of cards is the devil's prayer-book. 

One rarely finds a rich gambler; easy winnings 
are lavishly expended. 

Gambling is an express train to ruin. 

Horse racing is a galloping consumption. 

Gambling is play in name but crime in reality. 

The devil goes shares in gambling. 

A wager is a fool's argument. 

Gaiety. 

Gaiety is often the ripple over the depths of de- 
spair. 

Often in the midst of mirth the heart is sad. 

The gaiety of the wicked is like a thin crust of 
lava over the mouth of a volcano. 

Gaiety is to good humor as perfume to vegetable 
fragrance; the one overpowers weak spirits, the 
other recreates and revives them. 

Gentleman. 

The acme of civilization is the perfect gentleman. 

Open, loyal, true, humble and affable; honorable 
himself and in his judgment of others. 



84 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

The gentleman is solid mahogany ; the fashionable 
man is only veneer. 

To all he is a gentleman. Punctuality and polite- 
ness are his inseparable companions. 

Gentleness. 

We are indebted to Christianity for gentleness 
toward women. 

Nothing is so strong as gentleness. 
It accomplishes more than violence. 
It is considerate, tender, sympathetic, refined. 

Gossip. 

Fire and sword do less damage than does the bab- 
bler. 

An empty brain and a tattling tongue are usually 
companions. 

He is littlest who belittles others. 

Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but 
not so many as have fallen by the tongue. 

When men speak ill of thee so live that no one 
will believe them. 

It is the finest peach in the orchard that has the 
most stones thrown at it. 

Government. 

The best government is that which governs least. 

It is useless to make good laws for bad people. 

Public sentiment is more potent than law. 

Administration cannot be placed into too few 
hands and legislation into too many. 

Govern thyself and thou canst govern others. 

Those who cannot govern themselves should be 
governed. 

The end of government is the happiness of the 
people. 

Society is formed by individuals for mutual as- 



GIFTS. 85 

sistance and individual protection, and government 
results, as necessary for the protection of society. 

By wisdom peace, by peace plenty. 

Good men are a public good. 

Better a lean peace than a fat victory. 

He that buys magistracy must sell justice. 

Human laws reach not thoughts. 

Kings have no power over souls. 

Might overcomes right. 

As is the government, so are the people. 

The blood of the soldier makes the glory of the 
general. 

The treason is loved, but the traitor is hated. 

The trial is not fair where affection is judge. 

Genius. 

Common sense is genius in its working dress. 

Genius is infinite painstaking. 

If a man fails he is called a fool; if he succeeds, 
a genius. 

A genius is born, not made. 

Genius results from reason and imagination. 
Gifts. 

A present blindeth the eyes. 

A present is cheap, but love is dear. 

Presents make friendship warm. 

He is more noble who deserves than he who con- 
fers benefits. 

Whatever is given to the poor is laid up in heaven. 

The last benefit is the one most remembered. 

To give is honor, to beg disgrace. 

To give tardily is to refuse. 

He who giveth expecteth something in return. 

He who gives you fair words feeds you with an 
empty spoon. 

Give a grateful man more than he asks. 

Much is expected where much is given. 



86 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Give because you love to give — as the flower 
pours forth its perfume. 

To give and to lose is nothing ; but to lose and to 
give still is the part of a great mind. 

Who gives a trifle meanly is meaner than a trifle. 

Glory. 

Glory built on selfish principles is shame and guilt. 

The glory of this life is transient. 

Conscience is the true guide to glory. 

The glory of any age is its coterie of great men. 

God. 

God is where he was. 

God never made his work for men to mend. 

Who hath God, hath all ; who hath Him not, hath 
less than nothing. 

God loves us, not for what we are, but for what 
he can make us. 

God, pervading all, is in all things the mystery of 
each. 

Mystery is God's name; He is the mystery of 
goodness. 

God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and its 
circumference beyond space. 

The glory of the Omnipotent bursts through 
everything. 

There is a never-sleeping Eye, seeing our hidden 
faults. 

Live near to Him, and your soul will be at peace. 

All things proclaim the existence of a God. 

God delays, but does not forget. 

Godliness. 

The good man standeth calm and strong, for God 
is his ally. 

A good name is a sound inheritance. 
A good action is never thrown away. 



GOOD NATURE. 87 

Goodness is the supreme beauty. 

There is no good that doth not cost a price. 

A good name keeps its lustre in the dark. 

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. 

Good. 

All good is the better for being diffused. 

Good things go in a small compass. 

Good words cost no more than bad. 

Good words and no deeds are rushes and reeds. 

Good words cool more than cold water. 

A good man leaveth an inheritance to his chil- 
dren's children. 

A good name is rather to be chosen than great 
riches ; and loving favor rather than silver and gold. 

However it be, it seems to me 

'Tis only noble to be good : 

Kind hearts are more than coronets, 

And simple faith, than Norman blood. 

Learn the luxury of doing good. 

Be not simply good ; be good for something. 

Good Breeding. 

As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, 
so does politeness before man. 
Good Humor. 

Good humor is the health of the soul ; sadness its 
poison. 

Good humor collects honey from every herb. 

Good sense and good nature are never separated ; 
they are the product of reason. 
Good Nature. 

Good nature is the beauty of the mind, and is bet- 
ter than wit. 

That inexhaustible good nature, which is the most 
precious gift of Heaven, spreads itself like oil over 



88 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

the troubled sea of thought, and keeps the mind 
smooth and equable in the roughest weather. 

Good Temper. 

Good temper is like a summer day; it sheds its 
brightness everywhere. 

Grace. 

There is no growth without life. 

Grace is opposed to sin. 

Grace is the outward expression of the inward 
harmony of the soul. 

Like stars, grace shines brightest in the dark. 

It must be wrought in you through patient labor 
and suffering. 

Gratitude. 

Gratitude is not only the memory, but the homage 
of the heart. 

Cicero called gratitude the mother of the virtues. 

Gratitude to God makes even a temporal blessing 
a foretaste of heaven. 

God dwells in a grateful heart. 

To a generous mind gratitude is the heaviest debt, 
when it is not in our power to repay it. 

Ingratitude is abhorred by God and man. 

He that gives to the grateful man puts out to in- 
terest. 

Better a grateful dog than an ungrateful man. 

Hell is full of the ungrateful. 

Like a grate full of coals I burn, a great house to 
see; and if I prove not grateful, too, a great fool I 
should be. 

Grave. 

A Christian graveyard is God's acre. 
The ancients feared death; we fear dying. 
There the wicked cease from troubling, and the 
weary are at rest. 



GRUMBLING. 89 

Greatness. 

No one, generally speaking, is great in more than 
one thing. 

Superiority to circumstances marks the great man. 

The greater they are, the more they realize their 
own deficiencies. 

Great men have more admirers than friends. 

Vile men are vain, great men proud. 

Greatness is never less alone than when alone. 

A solemn regard for spiritual things constitutes 
true greatness. 

Only the good are great. 

Greed. 

He that grasps at too much holds nothing fast. 

The miser dies that fools and lawyers may live. 

Fools live poor to die rich; covetous men live 
drudges to die wretches. 
Grief. 

Every heart knoweth its own bitterness. 

Light cares speak, great ones are dumb. 

Our griefs how swift, our remedies how slow! 

No grief is so acute but time softens it. 

Grief softens the mind. 

Great griefs are mute. There is eloquence in 
silent sorrow. 

Grit. 

A man of grit has lots of sand. 
Grumbling. 

Don't let the stream of your life be a murmuring 
stream. 

Pigs grunt about everything and nothing: so do 
some people. 

The only lot most men don't grumble at is their 
burial lot. 

People complain from mere habit. 



9 o WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Those who complain most are most to be com- 
plained of. 

Grumblers are an idle set. 

Guilt. 

A man will likely wince when a shoe begins to 
pinch. 

The wicked flee when no man pursueth. 

The thief at every sound doth jump, and sees an 
officer in every bush. 

Successful guilt is the bane of society. 

Guilt alone, like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish 
mood, fills the night-air with visionary terrors and 
shapeless forms of fear. 

Habit. 

Habit determines what we are. 

Sow an act and you reap a habit ; sow a habit and 
you reap a whirlwind. 

Character is simply habit become fixed. 

Habit is a good friend, but a bad enemy. 

Habit is a cable which, in time, we cannot break. 

Happy is the man whose habits are his friends. 

To break a bad habit put a good habit in its place. 

Before we know it the foundations of character 
are laid. 

The wisest habit is the habit of care in the forma- 
tion of habit. 

The chain of habit coils itself around the heart 
like a serpent. 

The whole of character may be said to be compre- 
hended in the word "habits." 

Man is a bundle of habits. 

Habits are soon assum'd, but when we strive 
To strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive. 

Ill habits gather by unseen degrees, 

As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas. 



HAPPINESS. 91 

In the great majority of things habit is a greater 
plague than ever afflicted Egypt. 

There is not a quality or function either of body 
or mind which does not feel the influence of habit. 

Habit is second nature. 

Good habits result from resisting temptation ; bad 
habits from yielding to it. 
Happiness. 

Joys shared with others are more enjoyed. 

All who joy would win must share it; happiness 
was born a twin. 

He is the happy man whose life e'en now 
Shows somewhat of that happier life to come. 
True happiness is to no place confined, 
But still is found with a contented mind. 

The happy only are the truly great. 

Happiness is unrepented pleasure. 

'Tis not what we have but what we enjoy that 
makes us happy. 

Happiness is a bird all pursue but none catch. 

Children and fools have merry lives. 

No faculty so happy as the faculty of thinking 
you are happy. 

The joy that isn't shared dies young. 

A contented mind brings happiness ; it consists in 
the enjoyment of the present hour. 

The secret of happiness is in not allowing trifles 
to vex us. 

No one is as unhappy as he imagines. 

Happy is he who can live in peace and with his 
children. 

To be employed is to be happy. 

Happiness is not the end of life. 

A man must live for something besides his own 
comfort. 

There is no happiness without holiness, 



92 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

It is not what we have, but what we enjoy, that 
makes us happy. 

Harvest. 

The future has a rich harvest in store for those 
who rightly cultivate the present. 

Haste. 

Do nothing hastily but catching fleas. 

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. 

Don't pick me up before I fall down. 

Before the day breaks the rooster will crow ; but 
then roosters haven't much sense, you know. 

We act in haste and repent at leisure. 

Haste makes waste, and waste makes want. 

Haste not, rest not. 

One says prudent haste is wisdom's leisure. 

Wesley's maxim was a good one, — "Always be 
in haste, but never in a hurry." 

Haste is of the devil, and often brings shame. 

Haste is the beginning of wrath and brings re- 
pentance. 

Hasty counsels are seldom prosperous. 

Fraud and deceit are ever in a hurry. 

Take time for all things. 

Don't act in haste and repent at leisure. 
Hate. 

Love is heaven, hate is hell. 

He who wronged you will hate you. 

Curses, like chickens, come home to roost. 

Small men hate, great men pity. 

An ass that kicketh against the wall receives the 
blow himself. 

Because the cur has bitten me shall I bite the cur ? 

Hate vice, but not the vicious. 
Head. 

It is a fortunate head that never ached. 



HEARING. 93 

Two heads are better than one. 
Health. 

One hour's sleep before midnight is worth two 
after. 

Physicians rarely take medicine. 

Temperance, employment and a cheerful spirit 
are the great preservers of health. 

The full stomach loatheth the honeycomb, but to 
the hungry everything is sweet. 

'Tis good to walk till the blood appears on the 
cheek, but not the sweat on the brow. 

We are usually the best men when in the worst 
health. 

He who sits with his back to a draft sits with his 
face towards a coffin. 

Health is like money, not appreciated until lost. 

Health is happiness, the vital principle of bliss. 

We would not believe in hell were it not for dys- 
pepsia. 

Dyspepsia is the remorse of a guilty stomach. 

He who wants health wants everything. 

When a man loses his health then he begins to 
take care of it. 

If you sit in a draft doctors will cash it. 

To a well man every day is a feast day. 

Keep your feet dry and your head cool. 

A man too busy to take care of his health is like 
a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools. 

After dinner sit awhile; before breakfast walk a 
mile. 

Hearing. 

From hearing comes wisdom, from speaking re- 
pentance. 

He who will not hear must feel. 
Hear all and say nothing. 
Hear both sides and be just. 



94 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Heart. 

Hearts may agree though heads differ. 

A happy heart is better than a full purse. 

Men are oftener led by their hearts than by their 
brains. 

Memory, wit and fancy cannot grow young again, 
but the heart can. 

Where your treasure is there shall your heart be 
also. 

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh. 

Words from the mouth die in the ears, but words 
from the heart stay there. 

Heaven. 

A man may go to heaven with half the pains he 
takes to purchase hell. 

Don't growl about the world until you are sure 
of a better one hereafter. 

He who seldom thinks of heaven is not likely to 
go there. 

Eight hours to work, eight hours to sleep, eight 
hours to recreation given, and all to heaven. 

Heaven is a state of happiness infinite in degree 
and endless in duration. 

Aid yourself and heaven will aid you. 

He will never enter heaven who desires to enter 
there alone. 

We are near to heaven when we forget ourselves. 

It is heaven alone that is given away, only God 
may be had for the asking. 

A hammer of gold will not open the gate of 
heaven. 

Heaven must be in thee ere thou canst be in 
heaven. 

Heaven's gates are not so highly arched as princes' 



HOBBY. 95 

palaces; they that enter there must go upon their 
knees. 

And we mount to its summit round by round. 
Heaven is not reached by a single bound, 
But we build the ladder by which we rise 
From the lowest earth to the vaulted skies, 

Heroism. 

No one is a hero to his valet. 
One murder makes a villain, millions make a hero. 
Moral heroism consists in the fear of sin. 
All actual heroes are essential men, and all men 
possible heroes. 

The moral hero fears sin. 

History. 

Biography is the only true history. 

Nothing strengthens a nation so much as a famil- 
iarity with its history. 

All history is a romance unless it is studied as an 
example. 

No people can write its own true history; none 
ever did. 

History is philosophy teaching by example and 
warning. 

Hell. 

Hell is truth seen too late. 

Hell is wherever heaven is not. 

Hell is full of good meanings and good wishes. 

'Tis nothing but full knowledge of the truth, 
When truth resisted long, is sworn our foe ; 
And calls eternity to do her right. 

The way to hell is paved with good intentions. 
Hobby. 

Every man has his hobby. 

Hobbies, like horses, were made to ride. 



96 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Home. 

Home is where the heart is. 

The fireside is the seminary of the nation. 

Early home associations have a potent influence 
upon the life of the State. 

The sorest spot in our municipal and national con- 
dition is the decline of the home idea. 

The home is the birthplace of true patriotism. 

The training of a good citizen must begin at the 
cradle. 

The homes of any people are the very beginnings 
of its progress. 

Patriotism always falls back upon the home life 
and the home interests for its inspiration and its 
power. 

The strength and prowess of any land lies in the 
character of its citizens ; and their character depends 
largely upon the character of their homes. 

It requires only five minutes for a woman to clean 
up a man's room so that it will take him two weeks 
to find the things she has put away. 

An evening home is the best place for a married 
man. 

He who is far from home is near to harm. 

Dry bread at home is better than roast beef 
abroad.. 

Our home joys are the most delightful the world 
affords. 

He is blest who in his home finds happiness and 
peace. 

It takes a woman to make a home enjoyable. 

The sweetest type of heaven is home. 

Home, sweet, home, be it ever so homely. 

Home is the rallying place of the affections. 

The fire burns brightest on our own hearthstone. 



HONESTY. 97 

Home, the spot of earth supremely blest. 
What is home without a mother? 

Honesty. 

The more honest a man is the less he affects the 
air of a saint. 

Prefer loss before unjust gain. 

The man who hesitates to be honest is almost a 
villain. 

Honesty is the best policy and maketh rich. 

It pays to be honest, but it's slow pay. 

Honesty is the best policy, but many are satisfied 
with second best. 

If there were no honesty, it would be invented as 
a means of getting wealth. 

Truth needs no color, beauty no pencil. 

An honest man's the noblest work of God. 

The basis of high thinking is perfect honesty. 

Nothing is profitable that is dishonest. 

Honesty and policy have nothing in common. 

Honor lies in doing well whatever we find to do. 

If treating a boy as a gentleman does not make 
him a gentleman nothing else will. 

An honest countenance is the best passport. 

Nothing makes a man honest like plenty to eat 
and plenty to wear. 

Unjust gains are equal to a loss. 

We are bound to be honest, but not bound to be 
rich. 

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may 
be sure that there is one less rascal in the world. 

No legacy so rich as honesty. 

The thief who finds no opportunity to steal thinks 
himself an honest man. 

Let fortune do her worst, whatever she makes us 
lose, as long as she never makes us lose our honesty 
and our independence. 



98 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Honor. 

He's armed without who's innocent within. 

Honor and shame from no condition rise, 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 

There is nothing that improves a boy's character 
so much as putting him on his honor. 

A hundred years cannot repair a moment's loss 
of honor. 

A man's word is his honor. 

A man who breaks his word bids others to be 
false to him. 

Among men of honor a word is a bond. 

Honor thy father and thy mother. 

Honor and care seldom are bedfellows. 

Honor is not seemly for a fool. 

Great honors are great burdens. 

Hope. 

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. 
Hope and strive is the way to thrive. 
A good hope is better than a bad possession. 
Hope is our only comfort in adversity. 
Hope on, hope ever; where there is no hope there 
can be no endeavor. 

She is a flatterer, and yet a true friend. 

It gives a taste from heaven. 

It comes from God. 

A man who lives by hope will die of despair. 

Great hopes make great men. 

Who loses money, loses much ; 
Who loses friends, loses more; 
Who loses hope, loses all. 
'Tis good in every case, you know. 
To have two strings unto your bow. 
Despair is the only genuine atheism. 
Never say die ! Up, man, and try. 



HOUSES. 99 

While there is life there is hope. 

Hope springs eternal in the human breast. 

When the night's darkest the dawn's nearest. 

Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with 
its light. 

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, 
we act and think in vain, and make life a greater 
dream and shadow than it really is. 
Horses. 

A fast horse needs no spur. 

He who buys a horse buys care. 

All lay the load on the willing horse. 

You may lead a horse to water, but you can't make 
him drink. 

If wishes were horses beggars might ride. 

Hospitality. 

Hospitality often degenerates into profusion and 
ends in folly. 

The first day a man is a guest, the second a bur- 
den, the third a pest. 

When there is room in the heart there is room in 
the house. 

Welcome is the best dish on the table. 

The unbidden guest is ever a pest. 

Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest. 

In entertaining strangers you may receive angels 
unawares. 

A guest and fish after three days are poison. 

Hours. 

An hour in the morning is worth two in the even- 
ing. 

Houses. 

Better an empty house than an ill tenant. 

A small house is better than a large mortgage. 

A house divided against itself must fall. 

.LofC. 



ioo WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

A man's house is his castle. 

A little house well filled, 
A little wife well willed. 

Humility. 

Humility is the true cure for many a needless 
heartache. 

It is easy to look down on others; to look down 
on ourselves is the difficulty. 

Humility is a divine veil which covers our good 
deeds and hides them from our eyes. 

Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation 
and bond of all virtues. 

The true man is both meek and self-reliant. 

True humility is strength putting itself by the 
side of weakness. 

When we realize how little we know we shall 
earnestly strive to know more. 

Humility is a virtue all preach, few practice. 

There is no true holiness without humility. 

All heavenly virtues emanate from humility. 

Humility is the avenue to glory. 

Hunger. 

Hunger finds no fault with the cooking. 
Hunger is the best sauce; to the hungry man no 
bread is bad. 

To rise at six, eat at ten ; 
Sup at six, to bed at ten ; 
May make a man live ten times ten. 

Hurry. 

Always in a hurry always behind. 
Nothing in haste but catching fleas. 

Do not hurry, do not flurry! 
Nothing good is got by worry. 



IDEALS. 101 

Husband. 

A good son makes a good husband. 

His wife's affection is shown by the care of his 
linen. 

For a married couple to be happy, the husband 
must be deaf, the wife blind. 

Hypocrisy. 

The hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his 
neighbor. 

The hypocrite steals the livery of the court of 
heaven to serve the devil in. 

Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to 
virtue. 

Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy. 

Saint abroad and devil at home. 

A wolf in sheep's clothing. 

A false face hides what the false heart knows. 

No rogue like a godly rogue. 

A white glove often conceals a dirty hand. 

You can't come in here, cried a voice from the pit ; 
hell's too good for a hypocrite. 

Better the world should know you a sinner than 
God know you a hypocrite. 

Icicle. 

Icicles are great eavesdroppers. 
Icicles are what they are cracked up to be. 
Ideals. 

The noblest minds have the highest ideals, to 
which they never fully attain. 

The blanks of life are filled up by ideals. 

Ideals are the world's masters, and man can never 
come up to them. 

He who comes up to his own ideal of greatness 
must always have had a very low standard of it in 
his mind. 



102 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Ideas. 

Ideas control the world. 

An idea is the mental image of a physical object. 

Great ideas come when the world needs them. 

We must conceive before we can construct. 

There is more dynamite in a great idea than in 
a bomb. 

They are the invisible powers which control us. 

They come with beards. 

They are flowers ; thought weaves them into gar- 
lands. 

Idleness. 

Idleness is hard work for those that are not used 
to it, and dull work for those who are. 

He is idle that might be better employed. 

Idleness is the sepulchre of a living man. 

Idle folks have the least leisure. 

Idleness is the root of all evil. 

Idleness rusts the mind. 

Idleness must thank itself if it goes barefoot. 

Idle folks have the most labor. 

Absence of occupation is not rest. 

If the devil catch a man idle he'll set him to work. 

The way to be nothing is to do nothing. 

We must render an account of every idle word, 
and so must we likewise of our idle silence. 

Idle Wishing. 

If you cannot have what you wish, wish for what 
you can have. 

Castles in the air cost a vast deal to keep up. 

Sell not the bear's skin before you have caught 
the bear. 

Make forty thousand wishes, they will never fill 
your pail with fishes. 



INDEPENDENCE. 103 

Ignorance. 

Despise school and remain a fool. 

Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise. 

The worst ignorance is where a man is ignorant 
of his ignorance. 

An ass will deny more in an hour than a hundred 
philosophers will prove in a year. 

A blind man leaned against a wall, saying, "This 
is the boundary of the world." 

Ignorance is less hateful than conceit, and is pre- 
ferable to error. 

Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune. 

Ignorance, united to vanity, pride and arrogance 
is dangerous. 

Ignorance is the mother of impudence. 

That pilgrim is base that speaks ill of his staff. 

Wonder is the daughter of ignorance. 
Imagination. 

Imagination bodies forth the forms of things un- 
seen. 

Imagination is the spring of human activity, and 
the source of human improvement. 

The soul without imagination resembles the ob- 
servatory without a telescope. 

Imagination is the creative faculty. 

The pleasures of the imagination are known to 
few. 
Independence. 

Keep out of the crowd, if you have to get above it. 

The freedom of the mind is the highest form of 
independence. 

A country cannot subsist without liberty, nor lib- 
erty without virtue. 

The spirit of independence is not merely a jeal- 
ousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for 
the rights of others. 



104 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

The love of independence is not only instinctive 
in man, but its possession is essential to his moral 
development. 

The wisest charity is to help a boy to help himself. 

The world's greatest things have been accom- 
plished by individuals. 

Full manhood depends upon freedom of thought 
and independence of action. 

Vast numbers of men and women ruin their lives 
by failing to assert themselves. 

Learn some useful art that you may be indepen- 
dent of the caprices of fortune. 

Lean liberty is better than fat slavery. 

Even fetters of gold are heavy. 

Industry. 

One honey bee is better than a house full of flies ; 
this world belongs to the energetic. 

A man who gives his children habits of industry 
provides better than by giving fortunes. 

Genius is nothing but labor and diligence. 

Know something of everything and everything 
of something. 

The difference between one person and another 
lies not so much in talent as in energy. 

A lazy man is of no more use than a dead man, 
and he takes up more room. 

Man must be self-made or never made. 

Labor is the great schoolmaster of the race. 

Industry is one of the best antidotes for crime. 

Each evening is a crisis in the career of a young 
man. 

Labor is indeed the price set upon everything 
which is valuable. 

Work is difficult in proportion as the ends to be 
attained is high and noble. 



INTENTIONS. 105 

Plow deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall 
have corn to sell and to keep. 

Seest thou a man diligent in business, he shall 
stand before kings. 

Work wields the weapons of power, wins the 
palm of success, and wears the crown of victory. 

Innocence. 

Unto the pure all things are pure. 

A clean mouth and an honest hand will take a 
man through any land. 

Innocence, like an icicle, once melted is gone for- 
ever. 

He's armed without that's innocent within. 

The innocent sleep well. 

Innocence and ignorance are sisters, though 
totally unlike. 

Like polished armor, innocence adorns and de- 
fends. 

An innocent man requires no eloquence. 

They that know no evil suspect none. 
Instinct. 

Instinct is a propensity prior to experience, and 
independent of instruction. 

Instinct distinguishes animals below man. 

Instinct is not so comprehensive as reason, but is 
perfect in its sphere. 

The hornet taught men to make paper of wood, 
the bee to shape cells that would contain most in 
same space. 

Under the direction of reason, instinct is always 
in the right. 

Intentions. 

Hell is full of good intentions, and heaven of 
good works. 

Intentions, like eggs, soon spoil unless hatched. 



io6 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Man punishes the action, but God the intention. 
'Tis not the action but the intention that is good 
or bad. 

Take away the motive and you take away the sin. 
'Tis the will that makes the action good or ill. 

Imitation. 

Imitation is the most sincere flattery. 
Imitation is natural from infancy. 
No man ever became great by imitation. 
We belittle ourselves by imitation. 

Immortality. 

Immortality is the glorious discovery of Chris- 
tianity. 

Immortality is divinity that stirs within us and 
points to a hereafter. 

Impatience. 

Adversity borrows its sting from our impatience. 

Impatience dries the blood sooner than sorrow. 

An irritable man lies like a hedgehog rolled up 
the wrong way, tormenting himself with his own 
prickles. 

Labor without impatience rids us of three great 
evils — irksomeness, vice and poverty. 

Impossibility. 

A thing cannot be at the same time both true and 
false. 

No one is expected to perform impossibilities. 

Impossible is found only in the dictionary of the 
fool. 

Impulse. 

Our first impulses are good and generous. 
Impulses discover the man. 
Reflection often kills our best impulses. 



INSANITY. 107 

Inconsistency. 

He robs Peter to pay Paul. 

To jump out of the frying pan into the fire. 

Consistency, thou art a jewel. 

Indiscretion. 

To sacrifice certain for speculative profits. 
Indiscretion and wickedness are first cousins. 

Infidelity. 

It is always safe to follow the religious belief our 
mothers taught us, for no mother yet taught her 
child to be an infidel. 

Ingratitude. 

He who forgets his Saviour is unmerciful to him- 
self. 

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have 
a thankless child. 

Injury. 

He who does an injury never forgives the injured 
man. 

Christianity commands us to forgive injuries. 
He who injures another always hurts himself. 
Seeming injuries often benefit. 

Injustice. 

Injustice under the name of law is the most in- 
tolerable. 

He who is unjust is an enemy of himself. 

Insanity. 

The insane are not insane in everything. 
Insanity destroys reason, but not wit. 
Insanity is the greatest punishment given to a 
mortal. 



108 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Insignificance. 

A straw or feather tells which way the wind 
blows. 

The insignificant are sometimes the most danger- 
ous. 

Instruction. 

The wise are instructed by reason, ordinary minds 
by experience. 

In moral lessons the understanding must be ad- 
dressed before conscience, and the conscience before 
the heart, if we would impress deeply. 

Take fast hold of instruction, keep her, for she 
will profit thee. 

Insults. 

A moral, sensible and well-bred man will not af- 
front me, and no others can. 

Adding insult to injury. 

He who puts up with insults invites injury. 

Injuries accompanied by insults are never for- 
given, for all men are good haters. 

Integrity. 

A man of integrity will never listen to an assault 
upon conscience. 

There can be no friendship without confidence, 
and no confidence without integrity. 

Intellect. 

God has fixed no limit to the power of the human 
intellect. 

Intellect has one failing, it possesses no con- 
science. 

Culture of intellect, without religion in the heart, 
is only civilized barbarism. 

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one 
can rob him of it. 



JEWS. 109 

A man cannot leave a better legacy to his heirs 
than a well-educated family. 

Irresolution. 

He who begins many things finishes few. 

One cannot drink and whistle at the same time. 

Who strives to build after every opinion will 
have a house unfit to live in. 

Of all weak men the weakest is the irresolute 
man. 

Jealousy. 

Jealousy spreads the bed with stinging nettles and 
then lies down to sleep. 

Jealousy is a common source of hapless marriage 
and divorce. 

A jealous man always finds more than he looks 
for. 

Jests. 

A jest never gains an enemy, but often loses a 
friend. 

He who would jest must accept one in return. 

Many a true word is spoken in jest. 

Wise men make jests and fools repeat them. 

A scoff is the proper reply to a jest. 

Take heed of jesting; many have been ruined by 
it. 

Merriment is always the effect of a sudden im- 
pression. 

Ridicule is often more potent than argument. Of 
all the griefs that harass the distressed, surely the 
most bitter is a scornful jest. 

A jest in scorn hits home more than satire's sting. 

Jews. 

The Jews are a piece of stubborn antiquity, dating 
beyond the pyramids. 



no WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Jews thrive everywhere. 
Jews are not afraid of fire. 

Joy. 

We should publish our joys and conceal our sor- 
rows. 

Joys are our wings. 

Joy is like the ague, one good day between two 
bad ones. 

Man is the merriest of all created animals. 

The crown is after the cross. 

Judge. 

No man should be both accuser and judge. 
As solemn as a judge. 

He who is judge between two friends loses one 
of them. 

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? 

Judgment. 

Judgment is founded upon experience. 

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of 
doing; others judge us by what we have done. 

It is no proof of wrong judgment to change one's 
opinion. 

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none go 
just alike ; yet each believes his own. 

He displays good judgment who doth not rely 
entirely upon his own. 

A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of 
learning. 

Justice. 

What is justice? To give every man his due. 
He that walks uprightly walks surely. 
Who knows only his own side of the case knows 
little of that. 

God help the sheep when the wolf is judge. 
Be just and fear not. 



KINDNESS. in 

If the judge be your accuser, may God be your 
help. 

Any time is the proper time to say what is just. 

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just. 

The memory of the just is blessed. 

Justice tempered with too much mercy becomes 
injustice to society. 

Let justice be done, though the heavens fall. 

A fox should not be on the jury at a goose's trial. 

Be just before you are generous. 

If all men were just there would be no need of 
valor. 

Every man loves justice at another's expense. 

Justice should be tempered with mercy. 

When a jury permits a guilty man to escape they 
augment the danger of the innocent. 

Impartiality is the life of justice. 

Justice is the ligament which binds society to- 
gether. 

Of all virtues justice is the best. 

Many are afraid of justice. 

Kindness. 

The milk of human kindness sours very quickly. 

Kindness is more binding than a loan. 

A language the dumb can speak and the deaf 
comprehend. 

An effort for another's happiness benefits us. 

How far that little candle throws its beams, so 
shines a good deed in this naughty world. 

Kindness is a noble and effective weapon, for it 
strikes the heart. 

Paradise is open to all kind hearts. 

All efforts for another's happiness benefits us. .__- 

We cannot be just unless we are kindhearted. 

The happiness of life is increased by small cour- 
tesies. 



ii2 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Kisses. 

If you can kiss the mistress, do not kiss the maid. 
The joy is mutual, and I'm still in debt. 
Kisses through a veil are very unsatisfactory. 
A kiss is a contraction of the mouth, coupled 
with an enlargement of the heart. 

Kleptomania. 

A kleptomaniac is one subject to fits of abstrac- 
tion. . 

Knavery. 

Take heed of an ox before, a mule behind and a 
knave on all sides. 

Who friendship with a knave has made is judged 
a partner in the trade. 

Once a knave, always a knave. 

The knave and fool are their own libelers. 

A knave discovered is a fool. 

Knowledge. 

An investment in knowledge always pays the best 
interest. 

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge the 
wing with which we fly to heaven. 

The most difficult thing is to know one's self. 
Learning makes a man fit company for himself. 

Knowledge is power, the desire for knowledge, 
by study must be won; it was ne'er entailed from 
sire to son. 

He who knows best commonly presumes most. 

I envy no man who knows more than myself, but 
pity them who know less. The proper study of 
mankind is man. 

Knowledge is a treasure, and practice is the key 
to it. 

Knowledge is silver among the poor, gold among 
the nobles, and a jewel among princes. 



LABOR. 113 

Knowledge enlarges the soul and mends the life. 

All wish to possess knowledge, but few are will- 
ing to pay the price. 

The wise carry their knowledge, as they do their 
watches, not for display, but for use. 

Who knows nothing doubts nothing. 

To know everything is to know nothing well. 

Knowledge is the eye of the soul. 

Common sense is knowledge of common things. 

It is noble to seek truth, and it is beautiful to find 
it. 

It has cost many a man life or fortune for not 
knowing what he thought he was sure of. 

Nothing is so costly as ignorance. 

Partial knowledge nearly always leads into error. 

Wisdom is the ripe fruit of knowledge; knowl- 
edge is the beginning of character. 

Labor. 

Love labor ; for if thou dost not want it for food, 
thou mayest for physic. 

Employment is essential to human happiness. 

Labor rids us of three evils, tediousness, vice and 
poverty. 

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet en- 
tirely miserable. 

Many hands make light work. 

By labor cometh wealth. 

It is not work, but worry that kills. 

Nothing can be attained without it. 

The laborer is worthy of his hire. 

No gains without pains. 

Woman's work is never done. 

No bees, no honey; no work, no money. 

No sweet without some sweat. 

God gives every bird its food, but does not throw 
it into the nest. 



H4 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

He who would search for pearls must dive below. 

God gives the milk but not the pail. 

If you would have things come your way, go after 
them. 

The world owes every man a living, and every 
man owes the world the effort to make it. 

He does well who does his best. 

Every one who does the best he can is a hero. 

Honor and shame from no condition rise, 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 
A day's work of productive labor is the unit of 
value the world over; gold and silver are but coun- 
ters. 

Ladies. 

The society of ladies is the school of politeness. 

When a lady's in the case you know all other 
things give place. 

The Grecian ladies counted their ages from the 
date of their marriage, not from their birth; others 
would like to. 

Language. 

Silence is wisdom. 

It is conceit to interrupt and anticipate. 

A stuttering man often breaks his word. 

Thinking is not clear until it finds expression in 
spoken words. 

Language is the expression of thought. 
Laughter. 

He laughs best who laughs last. 

Laughter prolongs life. 

The more fools, the more laughter. 

Laugh if you are wise, and grow fat. 

Beware of him who checks the laugh of a child. 

Who laughs at others' ills will soon mourn over 
his own. 



LAW. 115 

Let them laugh who win. 

He laughs in his sleeve. 

Laugh at your ills and save doctors' bills. 

Said the monkey to the bear, "'Tis as easy to 
grin as to growl." 

Smile on the world and it will smile on you; 
frown, and it will frown. 

A light heart, a light task. 

Man is the only creature that can laugh. 

Be always as merry as you can, for no one de- 
lights in a sorrowful man. 

Law. 

The best way to have a bad law repealed is to 
enforce it quickly. 

The good need fear no law; it is his safety, and 
the bad man's awe. 

Use law and physic only in cases of necessity. 

Fond of lawsuits, little wealth; fond of doctors, 
little health. 

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish 
between two cats. 

Our law punishes crime; Chinese laws do more, 
they reward virtue. 

Hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and 
wretches hang that jurymen may dine. 

Ignorance of the law excuses no man. 

The only thing certain about litigation is its un- 
certainty. 

A pennyweight of love is worth a pound of law. 

Justice often leans to the side where the purse 
hangs. 

He who goes to law for his sheep often loses his 
cow. 

Possession is nine points of the law. 

Truth is straight, but judges are crooked. 

A lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit. 



n6 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Colonel Compromise is the best and cheapest law- 
yer. 

If there is one thing the Lord doesn't know, it is 
the outcome of a lawsuit. 

Law and equity, which God hath joined, let no 
man put asunder. 

The welfare of the people is the highest law. 

Ancient custom is the origin of English common 
law, whence much of our own. 

Lawyers. 

Fools and the perverse fill the lawyer's purse. 

Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. 

The first question the lawyer asks about the case 
is, "Is it fee-sible?" 

When two dogs strive for a bone, and the third 
runs away with it, there's a lawyer among the dogs. 

Lawyers and woodpeckers have bills. 

"Virtue in the middle," quoth the devil, as he sat 
between two lawyers. 

Give the lawyer the reins and he'll drive you to 
the devil. 

Lawyers strive violently in court against each 
other, and then lunch together at the nearest res- 
taurant. 

A lawyer is a learned gentleman who recovers 
your estate from your enemy and keeps it for him- 
self. 

A good lawyer seldom goes to law himself. 

When a man is his own lawyer he has a fool for 
his client. 

Laziness. 

Laziness is the sepulchre of the living man. 
To a lazy man every day is a holiday. 
Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon over- 
takes him. 



LEARNING. 117 

A good-for-nothing lazy lout, 
Wicked within, and ragged without, 
Who can bear to have him about? 
Turn him out ! Turn him out ! 

The lazy man is a soft snap for the devil. 
If the devil catch a fellow idle he will set him to 
work. 

Doing nothing is doing ill. 
"If I rest I rust," says the key. 

When youth sleeps on beds of roses, 
Age on beds of thorns reposes. 

Laziness begins with cobwebs, and ends with iron 
chains. 

The lazy servant to save one step goes eight. 

He that stays in the valley shall never get over the 
hill. 

Learning. 

Though house and land he never got, 
Learning will give what they cannot. 

The teacher who has forgotten his boyhood will 
have poor success. 

A good education is the best dowry. 

A little learning is a dangerous thing : 
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. 
These shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, 
And drinking largely sobers us again. 

Knowledge is not found unsought in heaven. 

No man hath guessed his capabilities, nor how 
he shall expand. 

Learning maketh young men temperate, is the 
comfort of old age, standing for wealth with pov- 
erty, and serving as an ornament to riches. 

The most learned are not the wisest. 

Soon learned, soon forgotten. 



n8 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

It is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in ad- 
versity, and an entertainment at all times. 

There is no royal road to knowledge. 

The great art of learning is to digest a little at a 
time. 

It is never too late to learn. 

Much of the learning in use is of no great use. 

Leisure. 

Spare minutes are the gold dust of time. 

Leisure is a beautiful garment, but unsuited to 
constant wear. 

Avoid the dangers of leisure. 

Never less alone than when in communion with 
my own thoughts. 

Only a wise man can employ leisure well. 

Letters. 

Letters are white-winged messengers. 

To write a good love-letter, you should begin 
without knowing your meaning, and finish without 
knowing what you have written. 

Female correspondence has a peculiar charm in it. 

Letters should be easy and natural, as if we were 
conversing with the party. 

Letters warmly sealed are often coldly opened. 

Lenity. 

We become more indulgent as we grow older. 

It is an attribute of mercy. 

Man may dismiss compassion from his soul, but 
God never. 

Liars. 

It is easy to tell one lie ; hard to tell but one. 

The most mischievous liars are those who keep 
just on the verge of truth. 

Sin has many tools, but a lie is a handle that fits 
them all. 



LIFE. 119 

Liberty. 

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. 

The tree of liberty flourishes when watered by the 
blood of tyrants. 

Personal liberty is essential to dignity and happi- 
ness. 

Liberty cannot exist without national virtue and 
morality. 

An hour of virtuous liberty is worth an eternity 
of bondage. 

Libraries. 

Libraries are literary shrines, the wardrobes of 
literature. 

A great library contains the diary of humanity. 
Life. 

Life is not altogether a jar of honey. 

So live that when the summons comes to join the 
innumerable caravan which moves to the pale realm 
of shade, thou go not like the quarry slave at night 
scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed 
by an unfaltering trust. 

Life is a solemn reality encompassed by eternity. 

Narrow is the way which leadeth to life, and few 
there be that find it. 

Life is given to train us for eternity. 

He lives long that answers life's great end. 

The aids to noble life are all within. 

He lives longer that is awake most hours. 
Lives of great men all remind us we can make our 

lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us, foot-prints on the 
sands of time. 

The end of life is to do the will of God. 

He lives in fame who dies in virtue's cause. 

As a man lives so shall he die; as a tree falls so 
shall it lie. 



120 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Man is born naked and bare, 
He goes through the world with trouble and care ; 
When he dies, he goes the Lord knows where, 
But if he does well here, he does well there. 

Light. 

Light is the symbol of truth ; the creation of Deity. 
Moral light is the radiation of divine glory. 

Literature. 

The literature of an age is but the mirror of its 
tendencies and acts. 

The Bible is the standard of good literature. 

To the publisher belongs the profit, to the author 
the fame. 

Literature nourishes youth, entertains old age, 
adorns prosperity, and solaces adversity. 

Little Things. 

He who saves little things can be liberal in great 
things. 

Little leaks sink great ships. 

How great a matter a little fire kindleth. 

Hair by hair the head grows bald. 

Small minds are won by trifles. 

Every little helps, said the dog as he snapped at 
the fly. 

See a pin and let it lie, you'll want a pin before 
you die. 

Little streams from little fountains flow, 
Tall oaks from little acorns grow. 

Great merit or great failings will make you re- 
spected or despised ; but trifles, little attentions, mere 
nothings, either done or neglected, will make you 
either liked or disliked is the general run of the 
world. 

There is nothing little to the really great in spirit. 



LOVE. 121 

A pebble in the streamlet scant 

Has turned the course of many a river ; 

A dewdrop on the infant plant 

Has warped the giant oak forever. 

Little minds are too much wounded by little 
things ; great minds see all and are not even hurt. 

As small letters hurt the sight, so do small mat- 
ters him that is too much intent upon them. 

Logic. 

Logic and rhetoric make men able to contend. 
Logic is the science of the laws of thought. 
Argument, the logic of wisdom and truth. 

Losses. 

All is not lost that is in peril. 

Prefer loss to unjust gain. 

When a thing is lost its worth is known. 

Love. 

A man is in no danger as long as he talks his love ; 
don't impale yourself on your own pothooks. 

The language of true love is understood by all 
creatures. 

Love conquers all things except poverty and the 
toothache. 

All true love is founded on esteem. 

If nobody loves you it is your own fault. 

One who has no children knows not what love is. 

To be wise and love exceeds man's might. 

All's fair in love and war. 

A fence between makes love more keen. 

The love of lads, like fire and fads, is soon in and 
soon out. 

Love is a shroud in which the faults of our loved 
one lie buried. 

Thy love to me passeth the love of women. 

Life is a flower of which love is the honey. 



122 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

'Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all. 

Love is blind, hence it is not necessary to turn on 
the gas. 

The heart that boasts it ne'er had broken 
Is to hard a heart for me. 

The love which is nurtured through sorrow and 
shame is deep and holy. 

There's nothing half so sweet as love's young 
dream. 

The course of true love never did run smooth. 

Love is despotic. 

Parents by opposing a match often increase a 
flame. 

We doubt the sincerity of a young woman who 
professes to love an old man. 

Nothing is so beautiful as the advent of woman's 
love, and nothing is purer. 

It is a glimpse of heaven below. 

Some women mourn the death of their lovers in 
order to appear more noble to be loved by others. 

Love me little, love me long. 

There is no love at first sight. 

Love is potent, but money is omnipotent. 

Love all, hurt a few, be false to none. 

I love my friend well, but myself better. 
He who forces love where none is found 
Remains a fool the whole year 'round. 

Two souls with but a single thought, two hearts 
that beat as one. 

He who falls in love with himself will have no 
rivals. 

None without hope e'er loved the brightest fair, 

But love can hope where reason would despair. 

True love has no thought of self, but sacrifices 
all things to bless the things it loves. 



LUCKY. 123 

Perfect love casteth out fear. 
The love of woman is a fearful thing, for her hap- 
piness is involved in it. 
Love laughs at locksmiths. 
All true love is founded on esteem. 
He who loves well obeys well. 
Work and not words are the proof of love. 

Love makes the music of the blest above, 
Heaven's harmony is universal love. 

Love can neither be bought nor sold; its only 
price is love. 

Love rules his kingdom without a sword. 

A loveless life is a living death. 

The strongest evidence of love is sacrifice. 

True love never grows old. 

A mother's love is ever in its spring. 

He that plants trees loves others besides himself. 
Lovers. 

All the world loves a lover. 

Lovers' quarrels are love redoubled. 

Lovers' purses are tied with cobwebs. 

The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of im- 
agination all compact. 

Lucky. 

He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. 

He who trusts in his luck for his happiness will 
be in luck when he gets it. 

Luck comes to him who seeks it. 

Luck has wings and helps those who help them- 
selves. 

Luck is always against the man who depends 
upon it. 

A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck. 

Luck is an excellent word, if you prefix "P." 

Diligence is the mother of Good Luck. 



124 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Lucky men are as rare as white crows. 
Pitch the lucky man into the river, and he will 
come up with a fish in his mouth. 

Luxury. 

It is a short step from comfort to luxury, but a 
long journey back again. 

Luxury has destroyed many kingdoms. 
Luxury hastened the fall of Rome. 

Lying. 

A lie is like a snowball, the farther you roll it the 
bigger it becomes. 

The man who cannot lie is dead. 

A white lie is one you yourself tell. 

Show me a liar and I will show you a thief. 

A lie will go round the world while truth is pull- 
ing on its boots. 

A liar should have a good memory. 

A liar's punishment is not being believed when he 
speaks the truth. 

Madness. 
As mad as a March hare. 
There's method in his madness. 
Every madman thinks all other men mad. 

Maidens. 

Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they 
have them they want everything. 

To win the mistress, first bribe the maid. 
The lass who has many wooers oft fares the 
worst. 

Little girls are won with dolls ; big girls with dol- 
lars. 

A maid oft seen and a gown oft worn 
Are disesteemed and held in scorn. 

A maid that laughs is half taken. 



MAN. 125 

A true girl does sometimes venture to be offensive. 

Advise no one to go to the war, nor to marry. 

If thou desirest a wife, choose her on a Saturday 
rather than on a Sunday. 

Observe the face of the wife to know the hus- 
band's character. 

Smoke, raining in the house, and a scolding 
woman, will make a man run out of doors. 
Malice. 

Malice is the devil's picture, it imbibes one-half 
of its own poison. 

Malice has a strong memory and a keen sight. 

Man. 

No man ever becomes suddenly very good or very 
bad. 

A man cannot live a broad life if he runs only in 
one groove. 

Every man will count for what he's worth. 

Many self-made men grow tired before the job is 
finished. 

The darkest hour of a young man is when he sits 
down to study how to get money without earning it. 

There's a tide in the affairs of men which taken 
at its flood leads on to fortune. 

Remember that dividends in life are not paid until 
the investment to personal effort has been made. 

A man may suffer without sinning, but a man 
cannot sin without suffering. 

Like wagons, men rattle prodigiously when there 
is nothing in them. 

Fast men, like rapid rivers, are shallow. 

A little great man is the most insignificant indi- 
vidual living. 

Man proposes ; God disposes. 

Man's extremity; God's opportunity. 

Men are but children of a larger growth. 



126 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Men take less care of their conscience than of 
their reputation. 

A man must be taught as if you taught him not, 
And things unknown proposed as things forgot. 

Men at sometime are masters of their fate. 
A man prone to proimise is apt to forget. 
Some think all men have their price. 
At ten a child, at twenty wild, 
At thirty strong, if ever ; 
At fifty rich, at sixty good — or never. 
Every man knows something worse of himself 
than anyone can tell him. 

The child is father to the man. 
Press not a falling man too far. 
The greatest study of mankind is man. 
Man by man was never known ; 
Heart by heart was never seen. 
Man can only apprehend, not comprehend himself. 
No man ever wrote his own or another man's true 
biography. 

Manners. 

As are the times, so are the manners. 

Manners make the man, and often gain fortunes. 

Good manners consist in putting at ease him with 
whom we converse. 

Simplicity in manners is enchanting. 

Civility costs nothing; there is no policy like 
politeness. 

The society of refined women is a school of good 
manners. 

Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its 
way through the world. 

The manner of a vulgar man displays freedom 
without ease ; that of a gentleman ease without free- 
dom. 



MARRIAGE. 127 

In manners, tranquillity is power. 

Good manners are a product of good morals. 

A man's fortune is often decided by his manners. 

All doors open to courtesy. 

Men like bullets go farthest when they are 
polished. 

Actions, words, looks, steps, form the alphabet by 
which you can spell character. 

The truly generous are the most courteous. 

Nothing can constitute good breeding that has not 
good nature as its foundation. 

A man's good breeding is the best security against 
insults. 

Little courtesies sweeten life. 

There is always time for courtesy. 

True courtesy rests upon a normal foundation. 

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices. 

Striking manners are bad manners. 

A loud laugh betokens an empty mind. 

Irreverence in church is rudeness to God. 

Don't make yourself a sidewalk obstruction. 

Never pay social calls on the street corners. 

Never discuss private business in public places. 

Fidget and fret are poor traveling companions. 

Loudness attracts only attention, never admira- 
tion. 

He travels safely who is guarded by poverty and 
guided by love. 

Marriage. 

She that weds well will wisely match her love, 
Nor be below her husband — nor above. 

A cheerful wife is the joy of life. 

A bad husband cannot be a good man. 

It is not every couple that is a pair. 

The wedding should last through wedded life. 



128 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

In marriage it is all very well to say that "two are 
one" — the question is which one? 

Let every husband stay a lover true, 
And every wife remain a sweetheart, too. 

It is a sorry house in which the cock is silent and 
the hen crows. 

Who can guess the potency of woman's love and 
patience, her precious influence, her sweet strength, 
to bless a husband's home? 

Neither reproach nor flatter thy wife where any- 
one heareth or seeth it. 

Who wives for a dower resigns his own power. 

Rising early and marrying young are what no 
man repents of. 

Marriage dates earlier than the advent of sin ; the 
only relic of paradise left us. 

Marry in haste and repent at leisure. 

Marriage is the bloom or blight of happiness. 

Marriage is heaven or hell. 

Marriage rightly understood gives to the tender 
and the good a paradise below. 

There is no purer, holier tie save the love we bear 
to heaven. 

If you desire to ruin yourself marry a rich wife. 

Before you marry, know where to tarry. 

Few natures preserve through life the poetry of 
their early passionate illusions. 

Better be an old man's darling than a young 
man's slave. 

Hasty marriages seldom prove well. 

It is not good that man should be alone. 

Mamma's darling makes a poor wife. 

The sweetest thing in life is the unclouded wel- 
come of a wife. 

It is better to be laughed at for not being mar- 
ried than to be unable to laugh because you are. 



MASTERS. 129 

A good wife is heaven's best gift to man. 

Take the daughter of a good mother if you wish 
to marry well. 

The only way to convince girls that men are not 
angels is marriage. 

Of earthly good, the best is a good wife, 
A bad, the bitterest curse of life. 

Marriage is an insane desire to pay some woman's 
board. 

Who weds a sot to get his cot will lose the cot 
and keep the sot. 

Martyrs. 

Christianity has made martyrdom sublime. 

Not the pain or death, but the cause, constitutes 
the martyr. 

The martyrs to vice far exceed the martyrs to 
virtue. 

Masters. 

No man can serve two masters. 

He is a good master who never errs. 

The master eats the flesh while the servant gnaws 
the bones. 

He who has two masters to serve must lie to one 
of them. 

The eye of the master will do more work than 
both his hands. 

A good servant makes a good master. 

Who fears his servants is less than a servant. 

A good paymaster never wants workmen. 

If you want a good servant take neither kinsman 
nor friend. 

If you would have your business done, go ; if not, 
send. 

The more servants the worse service. 



i 3 o WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Multiplying servants multiplieth trouble. 
He who serves is not free. 

Mathematics. 

The study of mathematics cultivates the reason. 
That of language, the reason and taste. 

Maxims. 

Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations. 

Maxims are easily retained in the memory. 

They are the jewels of knowledge. 

They are better than cautions, as they teach truth. 

The value of a maxim depends upon the value 
of the principle, and the extent and ease of its appli- 
cation. 

They are to the intellect what laws are to action. 
Means. 

The end should justify the means. 
Trust in God and keep your powder dry. 
We put things in order, God does the rest. 

Medicine. 

Medicine is usually a substitute for temperance 
and exercise, and a very poor one generally. 

Physicians undo the work of nature in attempt- 
ing to help nature. 

Doctors take little of their own medicine. 

Bitter pills oft have blessed effects. 

Meditation. 

Meditation is the nurse of thought, and thought 
the food for meditation. 

Meditation is the soul's perspective glass, in which 
we discern God. 

Meditation is the life of the soul. 

Meditation is one of the rarest faculties. 

No soul can preserve the bloom of its existence 
without lonely musings and silent prayer. 



METHOD. 131 

Our judgments are formed by meditation. 

Seriously meditating on religious truths renders 
them profitable to our souls. 

It is not he who reads most, but he who meditates 
longest who will develop best. 
Melancholy. 

Melancholy is an everlasting mist. 

Melancholy is the mind's disease. 

Great men have frequent fits of melancholy. 

Melancholy attends the joys of an ideal life. 

Some great men enjoy fits of melancholy. 

Go ! you may call it madness, folly — 
You shall not chase my gloom away ; 

There's such a charm in melancholy, 
I would not if I could be gay. 

Mercy. 

The loftiest attribute of heaven's mercy. 

Mercy is an attribute of God himself, for under 
the plea of justice none of us would enter heaven. 

We must ourselves be merciful if we expect 
mercy. 

The quality of mercy is not strained, but droppeth 
like the gentle dew from heaven. 
Merit. 

Real merit cannot long remain concealed, though 
it may not be rewarded. 

Charms entrance us, but merit wins the soul. 

We should judge of a man's merit by the use he 
makes of his great qualities. 

True merit, like a deep river, is noiseless. 

Method. 

Method prevents disorder in business and saves 
time. 

Dispatch is the life of business, and method the 
soul of dispatch; combined they govern the world. 



132 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Method is the capacity of systematic organiza- 
tion. 

Method will teach you to win time. 

Meekness. 

The flower of meekness grows on the stem of 
grace. 

The meek shall inherit the earth. 

I am meek and lowly of heart. 
Memory. 

Memory has its origin in attention. 

Memory is the depository of knowledge. 

Memory is the first part of the faculties that age 
invades. 

What we learn with pleasure we never forget. 

The remembrance of a well-spent life is sweet. 

Memory is the book of judgment. At the last 
day all secrets will be revealed. 

Strong memory, weak judgment. 

Let fate do her worst, there are relics of joy, 
Bright dreams of the past which she cannot destroy. 

It is the only pratice from which we cannot be 
expelled. 

Love and hate remember long. 

Indifference soon forgets. 

It is sometimes expedient to forget. 

Metaphysics. 

Metaphysics is the anatomy of the soul. 

When he who speaks and he to whom he speaks 
do not understand what is spoken, that is meta- 
physics. 

It can unsettle, but never rebuild. 

Mills. 

Though the mills of God grind slowly, 
Yet they grind exceeding small ; 



MISCELLANEOUS. 133 

Though with patience he stands waiting, 
With exactness grinds he all. 
Mind. 

One of the greatest duties of man is to improve 
his mind and control his manners. 

There is nothing so elastic as the human mind; 

Were I so tall to reach the pole, 
Or grasp the ocean with my span, 

I must be measured by my soul ; 

The mind's the standard of the man. 

like imprisoned steam, the more it is pressed the 
more it resists the pressure. 

How fleet is a glance of the mind ! 

Compared with the speed of its flight 
The tempest itself lags behind, 

And the swift-winged arrows of light. 

The more we are compelled to do, the more we 
can do. 

Few minds wear out; more rust out. 
Occasionally the mind must be unbent. 
Sublime is the dominion of mind over matter. 
Strength of mind is exercise, not rest. 

Miracles. 

Every conversion is a miracle. 

Every believer is a miracle of divine grace. 
Miscellaneous. 

A creditor always has a better memory than the 
debtor. 

The crow thinks her own bird the fairest. 

A penny's worth of mirth is worth a pound of 
sorrow. 

The higher the ape goes the more he shows his 
tail. 

A sanctified heart is better than a silver tongue. 



134 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

The greatest king must at last go to bed with a 
shovel. 

Be sure of the fact before you lose time hunting 
for the cause. 

Do what you can when you cannot do what you 
would. 

The more you stroke pussy's back the higher she 
raises her tail. 

The more we help others to bear their burdens 
the lighter our own will be. 

A wild goose never laid a tame egg. 

Three moves are as bad as a fire. 

Every day is a little life, and our whole life is 
but a day repeated. 

They that hide can find. 

Great minds are easy in prosperity and quiet in 
adversity. 

There could be no great ones if there were no 
little ones. 

He dies like a beast who has done no good while 
he lived. 

Things unreasonable are never durable. 

He learns much who studies other men; he also 
learns much who studies himself. 

Three may keep counsel if two be away. 

He that would live in peace and rest must hear, 
and see, and say the best. 

He that would eat the kernel must crack the nut. 

To set the fox to keep the geese. 

He who has not bread to spare should not keep a 
dog. 

When the horse is stolen the stable is shut. 

He who lives for himself alone lives for a mean 
fellow. 

It is not cowardice to yield to necessity, nor cour- 
age to stand out against it. 

Where love fails we spy all faults. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 135 

Keep conscience clear, then never fear. 

Who looks not before finds himself behind. 

Practice flows from principle; for as a man 
thinks so will he act. 

Who hunts two hares leaves one and loses the 
other. 

One swallow makes not a spring, nor one wood- 
cock a winter. 

Wit once bought is worth twice taught. 

The future has a rich present in store for those 
who rightly cultivate the present. 

Words from the mouth only die in the ears, but 
words proceeding from the heart stay there. 

Some are very busy and yet do nothing. 

No man can leave a better legacy to the world 
than a well-educated family. 

You cannot catch old birds with chaff. 

Never turn thy face from any poor man, and the 
face of the Lord shall never be turned from thee. 

The only way to be thought to be anything is to 
be it. 

He gives twice that gives in a trice. 

The remedy of to-morrow is too late for the evil 
of to-day. 

He knows best what good is that has endured evil. 

The ruin of most men dates from some idle hour. 
Occupation is an armor of the soul ; 
The sting of reproach is the truth of it. 

He that knows himself best esteems himself least. 

The sweetest wine makes the sharpest vinegar. 

He that hath many irons in the fire some of them 
will burn. 

There is no dungeon so dark and dismal as the 
mean man's mind. 

He that does you an ill turn will never forgive 
you. 

Truth scorns all kinds of equivocation. 



136 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

He who thinks he knows the most knows the least. 

He that ill did, never good believed. 

We would be ashamed of many of our best actions 
if the world could see all the motives that produced 
them. 

Home is home, though it be ever so homely. 

Vainglory blossoms, but never bears. 

If you trust before you try, you may repent before 
you die. 

What maintains one vice would bring up two 
children. 

If it were not for hope the heart would break. 

What pretty things men will make for money, 
quoth the old lady when she saw a monkey. 

If you cannot bite never show your teeth. 

When you bury animosity, don't set up a stone 
over its grave. 

Wolves may lose their teeth, but not their nature. 

Worth begets in base minds envy; in great souls 
emulation. 

Worth has been underrated ever since wealth was 
overvalued. 

You make a great purchase when you relieve the 
necessitous. 

It is better to do well than to say well. 

You would do little for God if the devil were 
dead. 

It is a long lane that has no turning. 

"Have a care," said a Quaker to an abusive young 
man, "thou mayest run thy face against my fist." 

It is hard to bring out of the flesh what is bred 
in the bone. 

With time and patience the leaf of the mulberry 
tree becomes satin. 

He that loses anything and gets wisdom by it is 
a gainer by the loss. 

Keep your purse and mouth closed. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 137 

Weakness is a greater antagonist to virtue than 
vice itself. 

There are two reasons why we don't trust a man ; 
one because we don't know him, and the other be- 
cause we do. 

There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. 

Life at best is but a handful of fleeting years. 

Many a true word is spoken in jest. 

All men think all men mortal but themselves. 

No smoke without some fire. 

Nothing that is violent is permanent. 

It is impious in a good man to be sad. 

No alchemy equal to saving. 

'Tis vain to seek in men more than man. 

Nothing venture, nothing have. 

Virtue is true self-interest pursued. 

Novelty always appears handsome. 

A foe to God was ne'er true friend to man. 

Open confession is good for the soul. 

Fresh hopes are hourly sown in furrowed brows. 

Pleasant company alone makes this life tolerable. 

Mar not the things that cannot be mended. 

Practice makes perfect. 

What deep wound ever healed without a scar? 

Policy goes beyond strength. 

Whate'er of earth is formed to earth returns. 

Pride will have a fall. 

The worst of slaves is he whom passion rules. 

Put a coward to his metal and he'll fight like the 
devil. 

'Tis infamy to die and not be missed. 

Riches in the Indies, wit in Europe, pomp among 
the Ottomans. 

Hope and fear, peace and strife, make up the 
troubled web of life. 

Rome was not built in a day. 

Seldom seen, soon forgotten. 



138 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Better a poor and peaceful life, than wealth and 
fortune bought with strife. 

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan: 
the proper study of mankind is man. 

Set a beggar on horseback and he'll ride to the 
devil. 

All nature is but art unknown to thee, and chance 
direction which thou canst not see. 

Short reckonings make long friends. 

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, 
as those move easiest who have learned to dance. 

Success makes a fool seem wise. 

All habits gather by unseen degrees; as brooks 
make rivers, rivers run to seas. 

The fox is very cunning, but he is more cunning 
that catches him. 

When any great designs thou dost intend, think 
on the means, the manner and the end. 

The submitting to one wrong brings on another. 

The kindest and the happiest pair will find occa- 
sion to forbear. 

The pitcher does not go so often to the water but 
it comes home broken at last. 

Hear the first laws, the judgment of the skies; he 
that hates truth shall be the duke of lies. 

The whole ocean is made up of single drops. 

Give what thou canst; without thee we are poor 
and with thee rich ; take what thou wilt away. 
Mischief. 

He prepares evil for himself who plots mischief 
for others. 

He who hinders not a mischief when it is in his 
power is guilty of it. 

Misers. 

He lives sordidly that he may die rich. 

Miser means miserable, yet it is not certain he 



MISTAKES. 139 

does not feel happy counting his dollars while starv- 
ing. 

The prodigal robs his heir, the miser robs himself. 

He grows rich by appearing poor. 

The miser and a pig are of no use till dead. 
Misery. 

To be weak is to be miserable, doing or suffering. 

Little minds are subdued by ill, but great minds 
rise above misfortune. 

When misery is highest, help is nighest. 

Misery loves company, but that feeling is seldom 
reciprocated. 
Misfortune. 

Misfortunes never come singly ; it never rains but 
it pours. 

Misfortunes are not always irreparable. 

It is remarkable how patiently we can bear the 
misfortunes of others. 

The less we parade our ills the more sympathy 
we receive. 

We learn when a man is broken up he is generally 
broken down. 

We learn wisdom by the misfortune of others. 

An irritated soul sours on everything. 
Moderation. 

Moderation is the silken string running through 
the pearl chain of all virtues. 

Moderation is the inseparable companion of wis- 
dom. 

To live long one must live slowly. 

Moderation in prosperity argues a great mind. 

Moderation is indifferent about trifles, with pru- 
dence and zeal in important matters. 
Mistakes. 

We all err, but only fools continue in error. 



140 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Only dead people are exempt from making mis- 
takes. 

We learn wisdom from failure much better than 
from success. He who never made a mistake hath 
made no discovery. 

Take it easy and live long. 

Modesty. 

Modesty is to merit as shade to a picture, giving 
it strength and beauty. 

He who underrates himself is usually undervalued 
by others. 

Modesty in women is like color on the cheek, de- 
cidedly becoming, if not put on. 

When the heart is past hope the face is past 
shame. 

He who can feel ashamed will not readily go 
wrong. 

Let another man praise thee, and not thine own 
mouth. 

Immodest words admit of no defence, 
For want of decency is want of sense. 

Mobs. 

A mob is the scum which rises when the water 
boils. 

Without strong drink the mob would be harm- 
less. 

They mean license when they shout liberty. 

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the 
level of beasts. 

Money. 

Help me to money, take a seat ; 
If you have none, take to your feet. 

A man without money is a bow without an arrow. 
A fat purse makes a soft pillow. 



MORALITY. 141 

Fire, water and money are good servants but bad 
masters. 

He that gets money before he gets wit, 
Will be but a short while master of it. 

The want of money is the root of much evil. 
Money, the best friend of the masses, the support 
of the classes, the aim of the lasses, the ruin of the 
asses. 

Money calls, but does not stay ; 
It is round and rolls away. 

Before gold even kings take off their hats. 

There are three faithful friends, an old wife, an 
old dog, and ready money. 

He is most loved who has many bags. 

Earth has few joys like that from finding a stray 
quarter in a vest pocket. 

Would you learn the value of money, try to bor- 
row some. 

Now that I have a sheep and a cow, everybody 
says "Good morning, Peter." 

Money is only a medium of exchange for labor 
and has no moral right or claim to increase, except 
passing directly through some form of labor. 

This is the best world we live in, 

To lend, or to spend, or to give in ; 

But to beg, or to borrow, or to get a man's own, 

It's the very worst world that ever was known. 
Morality. 

Morality is always the same, being an emanation 
from God. 

Montesquieu said, the morality of the Gospel is 
the best gift bestowed upon mankind. 

You cannot divorce morality from Christianity. 

The divorcement of morals and piety belongs ex- 
clusively to paganism. 



142 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Mother. 

Ere yet a child has drawn its earliest breath, a 
mother's love begins its glow till death. 

A mother is a mother all the days of her life ; 
A father is a father till he gets a new wife. 

God could not be everywhere, therefore He made 
mothers. 

Holy and tender is a mother's love, the offspring 
of prayers and tears, which changes not with dim, 
declining years. 

The instructions received at her knee are never 
effaced from the soul. 

A man never appreciates a mother until he has 
lost her. 

No tongue can express the power, beauty and 
self-devotion of a mother's love. 

Christ's last words on earth were of his sorrow- 
ing mother. 

Motives. 

Motives are better than actions. 

The morality of an action depends upon the mo- 
tive that prompts it. 

We should oft have reason to be ashamed of our 
most brilliant actions. 

Murmuring. 

How bitter the partly suppressed complaint, the 
murmuring, grumbling of the ever dissatisfied, who 
know not why. 

Murmuring is the blighting curse of many mis- 
called homes. 

Music. 

The heart vibrates tremulously after its chords 
are struck by prayer. 

Luther said, "Next to theology, I award to music 
the highest position." 



NATIONS. 143 

Architecture has been called "frozen music." 

The minstrelsy of Germany is a music of philoso- 
phy, of heroism, of the intellect, and of the imagina- 
tion. 

The power of music is felt by all men and affects 
the mind and passions. 

Generally the least intellectual persons sing with 
the most expression, because voice and intellect are 
rarely combined. 

Of all the liberal arts, music has the greatest in- 
fluence over the passions. 

Music imparts noble ideas, engenders fury and 
love, and sways the heart of the listener. Music once 
admitted to the soul never dies, but wanders through 
the hall of memory bringing harmony everywhere. 

Mystery. 

Mystery is the secrecy of weak and cunning men. 

Mystery is but another name for ignorance. 

When we know the full extent of the danger our 
apprehension vanishes. 

Names. 

A good name in man or woman is a great posses- 
sion ; once lost, hard to regain. 

A man with a bad name is as good as dead. 

He that filches from me my good name robs me 
of that which naught enriches him, but leaves me 
poor indeed. 

A good name is the best heritage to bequeath to 
our children. 

Nations. 

A prosperous nation must be built on some moral 
foundation. 

Natural progress is the sum of individual energy 
and uprightness. 

The Italian is wise before he undertakes anything, 



144 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

the German while he is doing it, and the Frenchman 
when it is over. 

National decay is of individual idleness, selfish- 
ness and vice. 

Love your country and obey its laws. 

The true defense of a nation lies in the moral 
qualities of its people. 

Noble ideas of citizenship and its duties strengthen 
the will of the patriots. 

The crying need of to-day is for men of public 
spirit. 

The citizen must share the risks of his country, as 
well as its benefits. 

The public service is not only for times of war 
and tumult, but also for times of prosperity and 
peace. 
Nature. 

Nature and revelation are God's books of mystery. 

We look through nature up to nature's God. 

Nothing so much prevents our being natural as 
the desire to appear so. 

Art may err, but nature cannot. 

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. 

The laws of nature are just but terrible. 
Wash a dog, comb a dog, 
Still a dog remains a dog. 

Wisdom and power are impressed upon the words 
of God, which distinguish them from the feeble 
imitation of man. 

If you live according to what nature requires, you 
will never be poor ; if according to the notions of 
men, you will never be rich. 

What's bred in the bone will never come out of 
the flesh. 

Though you seat the frog on a golden stool, 
He will soon jump back into the pool. 



NEWSPAPERS. 145 

Necessity. 

Necessity is a disagreeable guest, a good teacher, 
a hard master, and a powerful weapon. 

Necessity is the mother of invention. 

Make a virtue of necessity. 

Necessity is the argument of tyrants, it is the 
creed of slaves. 
Negligence. 

Negligence is the rust of the soul, and a little may 
breed great mischief. 

He who is negligent will soon become poor. 

Neighbor. 

Save me from a bad neighbor — and a beginner on 
the fiddle. 

One cannot keep peace longer than his neighbor 
will let him. 
Neutrality. 

Neutrality is the devil's ally, and no favorite with 
Providence. 

Neutrality in indifferent matters is commendable. 

Where right or religion is at stake, a neutral is 
either a coward or a hypocrite. 

News. 

Evil news travels fast; good news, slowly. 
No news is good news. 

He was scarce of news who told that his father 
was hanged. 

Newspapers. 

Newspapers are law books for the indolent, ser- 
mons for the thoughtless, and a library for the poor. 

Newspapers should contain a maximum of in- 
formation and a minimum of comment. 

Theere is no force for good or evil comparable 
with the influence of the press. 



146 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Newspapers form popular opinion; half of man- 
kind read nothing but the daily newspaper. 
Newspapers are the wonder of the world. 

Nicknames. 

Nicknames are generally suggested by some act 
or speech of the nicknamed. 

The more seemingly appropriate and ridiculous 
they are the more they adhere. 

Nicknames will cling from boyhood through man- 
hood and life. 

The more one tries to shake them off the closer 
they stick. 

Nicknames are the heaviest stones the devil can 
throw at a man. 
Night. 

The night shows stars and women in a better 
light. 

I'll not say "Good-night" till it be to-morrow. 
Parting is such sweet sorrow 

Nobility. 

Virtue is the only true nobility. 

Only the good are noble. 

You can create a nobleman, but God only can 
make a gentleman. 

Nobility is elective, not hereditary. 

Nonsense. 

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the 
best of men. 

Novels. 

We must have books for recreation and amuse- 
ment, as well as for instruction and business. 

A good novel is beneficial ; but most of our popu- 
lar novels enfeeble the intellect, vulgarize the taste, 
and give distorted views of life. 



OBLIGATION. 147 

Much novel reading destroys taste for useful 
knowledge. 

No habitual novel reader takes any interest in the 
Bible. 

A good novel is a powerful engine for civilization. 

Oath. 

An oath is not needed by a good man, nor will it 
prevent the bad man from perjuring himself. 

Obedience. 

Love makes obedience easy. 

The education of the will is the object of our 
existence. 

To learn obeying is the fundamental art of gov- 
erning. 

If thou wouldst be obeyed as a father, be obedient 
as a son. 

Obedience forms the first step in the building of 
the character. 

Obedience to a reasonable law is a source of moral 
strength and power. 

The ground of religious action should be obedi- 
ence to the divine will in all things. 

By doing as requested we do not always procure 
a friend, but often create enemies. 

Obedience is not only our duty but our interest. 

Command wisely and you will be obeyed cheer- 
fully. 

Obedience is wedded to safety, and is the mother 
of success. 

Next to God, obey thy parents, who have cher- 
ished thee with love and care. 

Obligation. 

We prefer to see those whom we have obliged to 
those who have obliged us. 



148 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

It is safer to affront some people than to oblige 
them. 

Obscurity. 

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and 
waste its fragrance on the desert air. 

Obstinancy. 

Obstinacy is one of the most incurable defects of 
man. 

Narrowness of mind produces obstinacy, as we 
usually do not believe that which we do not see. 

To get an obstinate man into heaven try to keep 
him out. 

Obstinacy and vehemence in opinion are conclu- 
sive proof of stupidity and folly. 

Observation. 

We get out of Nature what we carry to her. 

Fools learn nothing from wise men, but wise men 
learn much from fools. 

The non-observant man goes through the forest 
and sees no firewood. 

Some men will learn more in a country stageride 
than others in a tour of Europe. 

All conscious life begins in observation. 

Careful observers become accurate thinkers. 

The active, observing eye is the sign of intelli- 
gence. 

Occupation. 

Employment is Nature's physician. 
Constant occupation prevents temptation. 
Duties are ours; events are God's. 
He that does what he can does what he ought. 

This world is full of beauty, as brighter world's 

above ; 
And if we did our duty it might be full of love. 



ORATORY. 149 

Opinion. 

To obtain a man's opinion of you make him mad. 

Conscience with most men is but the anticipation 
of the opinions of others. 

Two opposite opinions should not lie on the same 
bolster. 

A man's own opinion is never wrong. 

A wise man alters his opinions, but a fool never. 

Popular opinion is the grandest of lies. 

Opportunities. 

Opportunities should not be lost lest they be never 
regained. 

There are many more fishes in the sea than were 
ever taken out of it. 

Fortune often knocks at the door, but the fool 
does not invite her in. 

Every dog has his day and every man his hour. 

A man's best things are nearest him. 

Opportunities neglected are lost. 

Seize opportunity by the forelock. 

Everyone has a chance to achieve greatness. 

A wise man will make more opportunities than he 
finds. 

You can do more than strike while the iron is hot ; 
you can make the iron hot by striking. 
Oppression. 

A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the 
nature of man. 

The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on ; 

And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood. 
Opposition. 

It is not ease, but effort, not facility, but difficulty, 
that make men. 
Oratory. 

Orators, like poets, are born; not made. 



150 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

-Oratory to be effective should be the language of 
the heart. 

An orator without judgment is like a horse with- 
out a bridle. 

Order. 

Working without a plan is sailing without a com- 
pass. 

Working without method, like the pig's tail, goes 
all day and does nothing. 

Without method little can be done to any good 
purpose. 

Method consists in the right choice of means to 
an end. 

To him who does everything in its proper time 
one day is worth three. 

Good habits are the first steps in order for chil- 
dren; punctuality, neatness, a place for everything. 

Order is heaven's first law. 

Let all things be done decently and in order. 

Let all your things have their place, let each part 
of your business have its time. 

A place for everything, and everything in its place. 

Order is the law of all intelligible existence. 

The great enemy of order is laziness. 

Success in life depends upon having the principle 
of order. 

Originality. 

There are but few original thinkers in the world. 

The most original writers borrow from one an- 
other. 

The merit of originality is not novelty, it is sin- 
cerity. 

He had the reputation of knowing a good deal 
who said, There is nothing new under the sun. 

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, 



PASSIONS. 151 

the most important thing in life is to know when to 
forego an advantage. 

Ownership. 

I do not own an inch of land, 

But all I see is mine — 
The orchard and the mowing fields, 
The lawns and gardens fine. 
Pain. 

Pain is the outcome of sin. 
Pain shows the luxury of health. 
A man who sits on a bent pin rises suddenly and 
speaks to the point. 

Great pains and little gains make a man sad. 

Painting. 

The merit of pictures is their effect on the mind. 

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is a silent 
picture. 
Pardon. 

He who sharply chides is more ready to pardon. 

Pardon is the choicest flower of victory. 

Pardoning the bad is injuring the good. 

We readily pardon in our friends those faults 
which do not affect us. 
Parents. 

A father's heart is tender, though the man is made 
of stone. 

Passions. 

The passions may be humored until they become 
our masters. 

The passions act as winds to propel our vessel, of 
which reason is the pilot. 

Passionate men have distorted visions. 

The passions are good servants but bad masters. 

Govern your passions or they will govern you. 



152 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

The passionate are like men standing on their 
heads; they see all things the wrong way. 

Payment. 

He who pays in advance never gets the worth of 
his money. 

Pay promptly, collect closely. 

Punctual pay gets willing work. 

Pay as you go. 

Patience. 

Patience and resignation are the pillars of human 
peace on earth. 

Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be 
perfect and entire, lacking in nothing. 

Patience is the great secret of success. 

Patient waiting is often the highest way of doing 
God's way. 

If you'd learn patience superfine, 
Go you to fish with rod and line. 

Patience is concentrated strength of repression. 

Patience will ultimately surmount every obstacle. 

In your patience possess ye your souls. 

Beware of the fury of a patient man. 

The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God. 
and into the patience of Christ. 

How poor are they who have no patience, 
What wound did ever heal, but by degrees. 

An ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains. 

Patience is the key of Paradise. 

It's easy to find reasons why other folks should 
be patient. 

Oaks may fall where reeds brave the storm. 

There is no greater misfortune than not to be able 
to bear misfortune. 

What cannot be cured must be endured. 

Be patient and you shall have patient children. 



PEACE. 153 

Patriotism. 

The noblest motive is the public good. 

Patriotism is a principle fraught with high im- 
pulses and noble thoughts. 

It is impossible that a man who is false to his 
friends should be true to his country. 

Every good man in politics wields a power for 
good. 

Think of all the cost of money and noble lives at 
which our liberty has been won. 

We must never forget, as we think or speak of pa- 
triotism, that such private virtues as honesty and in- 
dustry are its best helps. 

He serves his party best who serves his country 
best. 

I was born an American, I live an American, I 
shall die an American. 

Love of country is one of the noblest virtues. 

Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 
"This is my own, my native land ?" 

It is impossible that a man who is false to his 
friends should be true to his country. 
Peace. 

It is better to dwell in a corner of the house top, 
than with a brawling woman in a wide house. 
'Tis death to me to be at enmity; 
I hate it, and desire all good men's love. 
Better an egg in peace, than an ox and war. 
In time of peace prepare for war. 
Who loves peace serves God. 
By wisdom, peace; by peace, plenty. 
Peace flourishes when reason rules. 

He that would live in peace and rest 
Must hear and see and say the best. 



154 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Perseverance. 

Our greatest glory is, not in never falling, but in 
rising every time we fall. 

Victory belongs to the most persevering. 

Success in most things depends on knowing how 
long it takes to succeed. 

Perseverance is failing nineteen times and suc- 
ceeding the twentieth. 

Give us men like mountains, who change the 
winds. 

Perseverance depends on three things — purpose, 
will, enthusiasm. 

A falling drop at last will cave a stone. 

Perseverance gives power to weakness. 

Perseverance comes from a strong will, and ob- 
stinacy from a strong front. 

Great works are performed not by strength, but 
by perseverance. 

He who begins and does not finish, loses his labor. 

Pessimism. 

Pessimism is the philosophy with which we re- 
gard our neighbors, and optimism with which we 
regard ourselves. 

Philosophy. 

Many talk like philosophers and live like fools. 

Philosophy is often based upon disappointment. 

Philosophy educates the head, Christianity the 
heart, and both endeavor to lead men to the right. 

A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to athe- 
ism, but depth in philosophy bringeth him back to 
religion. 

The discovery of what is true, and the practice of 
what is good, are the most important objects of 
philosophy. 



PLEASURE. 155 

Physicians. 

A lucky physician is better than a learned one. 

Nature doth the cure and the doctor takes the fee. 

Nature, time and patience are the three great 
physicians. 

New doctor, new churchyard. 

Physicians mend us or end us. 

Fond of lawyers, little wealth ; 
Fond of doctors, little health. 

I was well, would be better ; took physic, and here 
I am. 

Who shall decide when doctors disagree? 

God heals and the doctor takes the fee and thanks. 

Feed sparingly and defy the doctor. 

Doctors never take medicine. 

Exercise, fresh air, needful rest and good diges- 
tion are the best physicians. 

Patients might stand some chance for recovery if 
physicians would earlier abandon them. 

Physic, for the most part, is nothing but the sub- 
stitute for exercise and temperance. 

Pity. 

Pity melts the heart of love. 

He that pitieth the poor lendeth to the Lord. 

Better be envied than pitied. 

Plagiarists. 

Some steal a thought, then clip it round the cor- 
ners, and challenge whose it was to prove it. 

Borrowed thoughts are borrowed finery. 

Pleasure. 

We all have a tendency to grasp at forbidden 
fruit. 

He who follows pleasure instead of business will 
soon have no business to follow, 



156 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty 
approaches sublimity. 

A man who knows how to mix pleasure with busi- 
ness is never entirely possessed of either. 

We should sacrifice pleasure to duty. 

A man of pleasure is a man of pains. 

Why, all delights are vain ; but that most vain 
Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain. 

Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the 
body, they are increased by repetition, approved of 
by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment. 
Though sages may pour their wisdom's treasure, 
There is no sterner moralist than pleasure. 

Choose such pleasures as recreate much and cost 

little. 

Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, 
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good. 

Poetry. 

Poetry is the language of the imagination and the 
passions. 

Poetry is the eloquence of truth. 
Policy. 

Policy is serving God so as not to offend the devil. 

Policy sits above conscience. 

Politeness. 

Politeness smoothes wrinkles. 

There is no policy like politeness. 

Behave to others as you would have them behave 
to you. 

True politeness consists in being easy one's self, 
and in making everybody about one as easy as one 
can. 

True politeness requires humility, good sense, and 
benevolence. 



POVERTY. 157 

The wise are polite everywhere, the fool only at 
home. 

Politeness is natural to refined natures. 

Politeness tells not only on the manners, but on 
the mind and heart. 

Politeness is a mixture of discretion, civility, com- 
plaisance, and circumspection. 

Politeness is the semblance of genuine goodness. 

Politeness is an easy virtue, costs little, and has 
great purchasing power. 

Politics. 

Nothing is politically right which is morally 
wrong. 

Men of no principle, but of great talent, often suc- 
ceed in politics. 

Populace. 

To be a popular favorite with the crowd, one must 
descend to their level, yield to their prejudices, and 
substitute them for principles. 

Popularity. 

The common people are poor judges of a man's 
merit. 

The world knows nothing of its greatest men. 

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and 
some have greatness thrust upon them. 

Avoid popularity, it has many snares. 

Possession. 

Possession is nine-tenths in law. 

Poverty. 

Poverty is the bad man's temper, the good man's 
perdition, the proud man's curse. 
A poor man without debts is rich. 
Poverty is very common. 



158 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

A poor man wants something, a covetous man 
everything. 

Better poor with honor than rich with shame. 

It is not poverty so much as pretence that haras- 
ses a ruined man. 

Poverty is no disgrace to a man, but it is very in- 
convenient. 

It is hard to find a man who bears poverty with 
a noble spirit. 

There is no more powerful advocate of vice than 
poverty. 

It is more easy to praise poverty than endure it. 

He is not poor who possesses a competency. 

Poor men seek meat for their stomachs ; rich men 
stomach for their meat. 

From many children and little bread, good Lord, 
deliver us. 

Wrinkled purses make wrinkled lives. 

A light purse is a heavy curse. 

Better an empty purse than an empty head. 

Better go to heaven in rags than to hell in em- 
broidery. 

Deep draughts and late slumbers make a man 
poor. 

Better a bare foot than no foot. 

A poor cask often holds the best wine. 

Sloth is the mother of poverty. 

Poverty often consists in our feeling poor; our 
sensitiveness makes half our poverty. 

Power. 

Power is duty; the more power a man has the 
more virtuous he should be. 

He is most powerful who governs himself. 
When power pleads, the law is silent. 
Power without justice is tyranny. 



PREACHING. 159 

Calmness has the appearance of power, and re- 
pression represents strength. 
Practice. 

Practice makes perfect. 

Practice what you preach. 

Practice flows from principles; for as a man 
thinks, so will he act. 
Praise. 

Commend a fool for his wit, and a knave for his 
honesty, and they will receive you into their houses. 

Let another praise thee and not thine own mouth ; 
a stranger and not thine own lips. 

Judicious praise is to children as the sun to flow- 
ers. 

Expect not praise without envy until you are dead. 

An essential preparation for eternity is praising 
God. 
Prayer. 

Human life is a constant want, and should be a 
constant prayer. 

Do not think that God's delays are God's denials. 

God hears no more than the heart speaks. 

He that prays as he ought will endeavor to live 
as he prays. 

He who goes to bed and does not pray makes two 
nights of every day. 

They never seek in vain who seek the Lord aright. 

He prayeth best who loveth best, all things both 
great and small. 

Humble believing prayer is never uttered in vain. 

Prayer should be the key of the day, and the lock 
of the night. 

Preaching. 

Better an ounce of example than a pound of ad- 
vice. 



160 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

He is a good preacher who follows his own in- 
structions. 

He who lives well is the best preacher. 

Preachers can talk but never teach, unless they 
practice what they preach. 

The tears of the congregation are the praise of 
the preacher. 

He who the sword of heaven will bear, should be 
as holy as severe. 

The preaching that comes from the soul has most 
effect upon the auditors. 

A clergyman should be great in his love, earnest 
in his efforts, and noted for his simplicity and gen- 
tleness. 

Whitfield said, "To preach more than thirty min- 
utes will suit only angels themselves as listeners. 

Preachers' sons and deacons' daughters are the 
objects of severe criticism. 

A minister's life should be a signboard pointing 
the way to heaven. 

The preacher should be positive, but not dog- 
matic; earnest, but not denunciatory; tender, but 
not sentimental; simple, but not commonplace; im- 
pressive, yet graceful ; popular but not vulgar rea- 
sons are the pillars of the fabric of a sermon. 

I preached as never sure to preach again, 
And as a dying man to dying men. 

Precepts. 

Precepts are the rules that should govern our 
lives. 

Prejudice. 

Prejudice is the reason of fools. 
When judgment is weak prejudice is strong. 
Ignorance is less remote from truth than preju- 
dice. 



PROCRASTINATION. 161 

Presumption. 

We may recover from the darkness of ignorance, 
but never from that of presumption. 

Pride. 

Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty 
spirit before a fall. 

A slight suspicion may destroy a good repute. 

A proud man never shows his pride more than 
when he is civil. 

When pride begins love ceases. 

A beggar's rags may cover as much pride as a 
Lord Mayor's robes. 

When boasting ends dignity begins. 

It is a mistake to confound pride with vanity; 
pride is self-esteem, vanity love of approbation; 
pride is preferable to vanity; it keeps a man out of 
the dirt. 

None is more severe than he of humble birth 
when raised to high estate. 

Principles. 

Principles should be the springs of our actions, 
hence too much care cannot be taken in acquiring 
them. 

Worse cannot be said of one than that he is a 
man of no principle. 

Procrastination. 

Procrastination is the thief of time. 

The sooner the better, delay is a fetter. 

Put not off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. 

At thirty, man suspects himself a fool ; 

Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; 

At fifty chides his infamous delay ; 

Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ; 

In all the magnanimity of thought 

Resolves and re-resolves; then dies the same. 



162 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

To-day if ye will hear his voice harden not your 
hearts. 

They whose work hath no delay achieve Hercu- 
lean labors. 

Let us not linger here then, until fate 
Make longing unavailing, hope too late, 
And turn to lamentations all our prayers. 

By the street of "By-and-bye" one arrives at the 
house of "Never." 

Progress. 

Progress is the activity of to-day and the assur- 
ance of to-morrow. 

All that is human must either progress or retro- 
grade. 

The grandest law is that of progressive develop- 
ment. 

It is the distinguishing characteristic of our coun- 
try ; westward the star of empire takes its way. 

Promises. 

He who is slow in promising, is most faithful in 
the performance. 

Men apt to promise frequently forget. 
To promise easy, to perform troublesome. 
Performances, not promises, retain friends. 

Promptness. 

Promptness is the soul of business; deliberate 
with caution, but act with promptness and energy. 

Whilst we are considering when to begin, it is 
often too late to act. 

When a fool makes up his mind the market has 
gone by. 

The individual who is habitually tardy in meeting 
an appointment will never be respected, or success- 
ful in life. 



PROVERBS. 163 

Promptness takes the drudgery out of a difficult 
work. 

Whatever you have to do, think out the quickest 
way of doing it and do it at once. 

Some people have three hands — a right hand, a 
left hand, and a little behind-hand. 

"Putting off" usually means "leaving off." "Go- 
ing to do" becomes "going undone." 

Prosperity. 

Prosperity is the touchstone of virtue; for it is 
less difficult to bear misfortune than prosperity. 

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a 
greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation 
trains and strengthens it. 

Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity 
doth best discover virtue. 

In prosperity prepare for a change, in adversity 
hope for none. 

Prosperity brings vices to light, and adversity vir- 
tues. To rejoice in the prosperity of another is to 
share it. 

Proverbs. 

Proverbs are potted wisdom. 

A proverb is good sense brought to a point. 

They are the wit of one and the wisdom of many. 

Many successful lives have been built on a pro- 
verb. 

They are short sentences drawn from long experi- 
ence. 

They are the wisdom of years crystalized in the 
wit of a moment. 

The genius, wit and spirit of a nation are discov- 
ered in its proverbs. 

The next best thing to being witty oneself is to be 
able to quote another's wit. 

The study of proverbs may be more instructive 



164 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

and comprehensive than the most elaborate scheme 
of philosophy. 

Providence. 

As a wise man if wiser would deal with himself, 
so the Divine Providence deals with him. 

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew 
them as we will. 

Heaven designs to suit our trials to our strength. 

He who takes truth for his guide, and duty for 
his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead 
him aright. 

Prudence. 

If you economize in prosperity, you will never feel 
adversity. 

Prudence is the virtue of character and the parent 
of success. 

To worry about to-morrow is to be unhappy to- 
day. 

Opportunities are the golden moments in the 
stream of life. 

Want of care does us more damage than want of 
knowledge. 

Success in life results from seizing opportunities 
as they present themselves. 

Punctuality. 

Be always in time ; too late is a "crime." 
Promptness is the soul of business. 
Care and diligence ensure success. 
Dispatch is the life of business, and saves confus- 
ion and time. 

Punishment. 

The object of punishment is the prevention of evil. 
Men punish the action, God the intention. 



QUARREL. 165 

Purchases. 

A man's purse will never be bare 

If he knows when to buy, to spend, and to spare. 

A man who buys what he doesn't need will soon 
need what he cannot buy. 

Pure. 

The words of the pure are pleasant words. 

Cleanliness is a fine life-preserver. 

Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things 
are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
things are pure — think on these things. 

Unto the pure all things are pure. 

From purity of thought all pleasure springs, 
And from an humble spirit all our peace. 

Purposes. 

Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into 
action, will run into decay. 
Quarrel. 

It takes two to have a quarrel, but only one to 
start it. 

Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just. 

Those who in quarrels interpose 
Must often wipe a bloody nose. 

Beware of entrance into a quarrel; being in, act 
that thy opponent may beware of thee. 

Scorn the last word in a quarrel, secure the first 
after it. 

Quarrels better come at the latter end of a feast 
than the beginning of a fray. 

Nothing passes between asses but kicks. 

A little explained, a little endured, 
A little forgiven, the quarrel is cured. 

A good man will as soon run into a fire as a 
quarrel. 



i66 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

When one will not, two cannot quarrel. 
An ill workman quarrels with his tools. 

Questions. 

He who never inquires never learns. 

It is not every question that deserves an answer. 

Quotations. 

An apt quotation is as good as an original remark. 

Rashness. 

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. 
Reading. 

A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly 
read. 

To read without reflection, is to eat without di- 
gesting. 

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready 
man, and writing an exact man. 

We should select our books as we do our compan- 
ions. 

Reason. 

Reason is the chief glory of human nature, but is 
not so unerring in a limited sphere, as the instinct 
of the lower animals. 

We are very proud of our reason, and yet we 
guess at half we know. 

Strong reasons incite a vigorous action. 

Good reasons must give place to better. 

We reason from our heads, but act from our 
hearts. 

Instinct leaps, reason feebly climbs. 

Refinement. 

Refinement is the elevation of self above the sen- 
sual. 

It creates beauty everywhere. 



RELIGION. 167 

Too great refinement is false delicacy, and true 
delicacy is solid refinement. 

Reflection. 

A wise man reflects before he speaks; a fool 
speaks and then reflects. 

Think twice before speaking. 

He who will not reflect is a ruined man. 

Reform. 

God assists the man who tries to reform. 
Conservatism seeks comfort, reform truth. 
Reformers are generally unpopular. 

Regret. 

Of all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are 
these, "it might have been." 

Religion. 

Religion is the best armour a man can have, but 
it is the worst cloak. 

Its foundation is faith, its action works, its tem- 
per holiness, its aim obedience to God. 

It is love coined into conduct. 

A Christian is the highest style of man. 

No man ever regretted Christianity on his death 
bed. 

None but God can satisfy the longings of an im- 
mortal soul. 

Religion lies more in walk than talk. 

A man without religion is to be pitied, but a god- 
less woman is a horror above all things. 

Philosophy can do nothing which religion does 
not improve. 

No man's religion ever survives his morals. 

He who is false to God is false to man. 

True piety elevates the spirit, ennobles the heart, 
and strengthens the courage. 



168 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Remedies. 

The remedy is oft worse than the disease. 

The remedy of to-morrow is too late for the evil 
of to-day. 

Things without remedy should be without regard. 

There is a remedy for all things but the appointed 
time to die. 

Remorse. 

Remorse is beholding heaven and feeling hell. 

Remorse is anguish excited by sense of guilt. 

Remorse is the most dreadful word in any lan- 
guage. 

Rent. 

The landlord never overlooks the leased thing. 
Repentance. 

Amendment is repentance. 

Late repentance is seldom worth much. 

There is no repentance beyond the grave. 

The bread of repentance we eat results from the 
sowing of our wild oats in youth. 

It is never too late in life to repent. 

True repentance hates the sin more than the pen- 
alty. 

As a man lives so shall he die ; 
As the tree falls so shall it lie. 
Repression. 

If you propose doing a mean act, delay it until to- 
morrow. 

Still waters are deepest, and the foe is most to be 
dreaded who never threatens till he strikes. 

Keep yourself from the anger of a great man, 
from the tumult of a mob, from a man of ill repute. 

Reproof. 

The sting of reproof is its truth. 



RESERVE. 169 

Reputation. 

Character is what we are; reputation is what we 
are esteemed to be. 

Reputation is not measured by the acre. 

A good reputation is a fair estate. 

Better be ill spoken of by one before all, than by 
all before one. 

If you would build for your happiness a sure founda- 
tion, 
Let the stone for the corner be a good reputation. 

Losing reputation we lose the moral part of our- 
selves. 

There are two modes of establishing our reputa- 
tion : to be praised by honest men, and to be abused 
by rogues. 

If it is a little harder to build up character than 
reputation, it is only so in the beginning. For mere 
reputation, like a poorly built house, will cost as 
much for patching and repairs as would have made 
it thorough at first. 

Gossiping and lying go together. 

Who steals my purse steals trash ; 'tis something, 
nothing, 'twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to 
thousands ; but he that filches from me my good 
name robs me of that which naught enriches him 
and makes me poor indeed. 

A man's reputation lies at the mercy of others. 

A good name is rather to be chosen than riches. 

Then gently scan your brother man, 
And gentler still your sister woman; 

Though they may do a knowing wrong, 
To step aside is human. 

Reserve. 

Show not the bottom of either your purse or mind. 



170 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Respect. 

Never esteem a man or thyself the more for 
money, nor condemn him for the want of it. 

A man, like a watch, is to be valued for his move- 
ments. 

Love is what we give, respect is what we owe, and 
men would rather give than pay. 

Rest. 

Rest sweetens labor, and is always good ; alternate 
rest and labor prolongs a man's life. 

Men tire themselves in pursuit of rest; it is won 
only by trial. 

What need of rest, except to be refreshed for fur- 
ther work and carry on our task? 

Retribution. 

Those who sow injustice reap hate and vengeance. 
They have sown the wind and shall reap the 
whirlwind. 

Revenge. 

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his 
enemy ; but in passing it over he is superior. 

The noblest remedy for injuries is oblivion. 

To revenge an injury is easy; to pardon is grand. 

It costs more to revenge injuries than to bear 
them. 

Only small minds rejoice in revenge. 

The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on, 
and doves will peck in safeguard of their brood. 

He who harboreth revenge keepeth his own 
wounds green. 
Reverence. 

Reverence is the crown of moral manhood. 

True reverence is homage tempered with love. 

Reverence is alike indispensable to the happiness 
of individuals, of families, and of nations. 



RICHES. 171 

Reverence is developed by looking for the good 
in others. 

Only the reverent can appreciate nature. 

Reverence, then, is not fear; but wonder, solem- 
nity, and veneration. 

Reverence is more than awe, it is awe softened 
and refined by gentleness and love. 

Three kinds of reverence should be taught to 
youth — for superiors, for equals, and for inferiors. 

No man of sound nature ever makes a mock of 
reverence. 

In the full glow of the light of our times only the 
pure are really revered. 

Rewards. 

The good shall receive the wages of their virtue. 

Riches. 

A stitch in time saves nine. 

Better give a shilling than lend and lose half a 
crown. 

Fortune knocks once at least at every man's door. 

The cares which are the keys of riches hang often 
so heavily at the rich man's girdle that they clog 
him with weary days and restless nights, when 
others sleep quietly. 

Be not penny-wise ; riches have wings, and some- 
times they fly away of themselves ; sometimes they 
must be set flying to bring in more. 

Who would be rich must keep his conscience in 
his cash book. 

God help the rich, the poor can beg. 

All riches have limits. 

The rich devour the poor and the devil devours 
the rich. 

There are two families in the world, the haves 
and have nots. 



172 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

He has riches enough who needs neither borrow 
nor flatter. 

An ass is but an ass though laden with gold. 

Riches serve a wise man but command a fool. 
Who gives all his goods before he be dead, 
Take up a mallet and knock him in the head. 

Ridicule. 

A fear of becoming ridiculous is the best check 
of our lives. 

Ridicule stifles all energy. 

It laughs men out of virtue and good sense. 

Right. 

Be sure you are right, then go ahead. 

Between right and wrong never hesitate. 

He who in questions of right, virtue or duty, sets 
himself above ridicule, is truly great, and shall 
laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he 
was laughed at. 

Rogues. 

The informer is the worst rogue. 

If you pity rogues you injure honest men. 

When rogues fall out, honest men come by their 
own. 

When rogues go in procession, the devil carries 
the cross. 

Rogues in rags are kept in countenance by rogues 
in ruffles. 

It is said there is honor among thieves. 

I affirm before God, I never knew a rogue who 
was not unhappy. 

It is much easier to think right without doing 
right than to do right without thinking right. 
Roses. 

Roses fall but the thorns remain. 

Roses and maidens soon loose their bloom. 



RHYMES. 173 

Ruin. 

The road to ruin is broad, in order to accommo- 
date the travel. 
Rules. 

There is no rule without an exception. 

The man who never breaks a rule is little better 
than a fool. 
Rhymes. 

First canting, then wooing; 
Then dallying, then doing. 

When Adam delv'd and Eve span 
Where was then the gentleman? 

He that would please all and himself, too, 
Undertakes what none can do. 

Be always as merry as ever you can, 
For no one delights in a sorrowful man. 

Women and wine, game and deceit, 
Make the wealth small, and the want great. 

Maidens must be mild and meek, 
Swift to hear and slow to speak. 

The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be ; 
The devil was well, the devil a monk was he. 

Who spends more than he should, 
Hath not to spend what he would. 

Plough deep, while sluggards sleep, 
And you will have corn to sell and keep. 
When I did well, I heard it never ; 
When I did ill, I heard it ever. 
He who has thriven may sleep till seven. 
He who will thrive, must rise at five. 
I never saw an oft removed tree, 
Nor yet an oft removed family, 
That throve so well as those that settled be. 



174 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

For age and want save while you may ; 
No morning sun lasts a whole day. 

A light purse 
Is a heavey curse. 

It would make a man scratch where it did not itch, 
To see a man live poor, and then die rich. 

Sabbath. 

A holiday Sabbath is the ally of despotism. 

A corruption of morals usually succeeds the pro- 
fanation of the Sabbath. 

He who would prepare for heaven must observe 
the sanctity of the Lord's day. 
Sarcasm. 

Sarcasm is the language of the devil. 

Sarcasm poisons reproof. 

A sneer is the weapon of the weak. 

Scandal. 

Believe that story false which should not be true. 

He who circulates a scandal is nearly as bad as 
he who originated it. 

Skepticism. 

Free thinkers are those who never think at all. 

The great doers in history have been men of faith. 

The prejudices of skeptics are only surpassed by 
their ignorance. 

Scholars. 

A scholar has usually three maladies — poverty, 
pride, and the itch. 

The mind of the scholar, to be large and liberal, 
must come in contact with other minds. 

Science. 

Science surpasses the miracles of mythology. 
Science is organized knowledge. 



SECRETS. 175 

Science is a golden chain of truths, and teaches 
men to think. 

Science, as well as religion, had its martyrs. 

Scold. 

Since you have been scolding me I have counted 
a hundred and twenty holes in that nutmeg grater. 

Seasickness. 

A man who is seasick generally wants the earth. 

When the ship commences to heave the passengers 
heave, too. 

Secrets. 

To him that you tell your secret you resign your 
liberty. 

The only way to keep a secret is to say nothing. 

There is nothing hid that shall not be manifested. 

Three things most difficult to do : to keep a secret, 
to forget an injury, and to make good use of leisure. 

The only secret a woman can keep is that of her 
age. 

How can we expect another to keep our secret 
when we cannot keep it ourselves? 

Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend 
has a friend, so be discreet. 

Let him have the key of thy heart who keeps se- 
curely the lock of his own. 

A woman always thinks it takes two to keep a 
secret. 

Don't ever let your hand know your foot's asleep. 

A secret is like an umbrella, 
Once out of your hand 
It belongs to t'other fellow. 
Tell everybody your business and the devil will 
do it for you. 

Confide a secret to a dumb woman and it will 
make her speak. 



176 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Tell your secret to your servant and you make 
him your master. 

Great talkers are like leaking vessels. 

Self-Conceit. 

Self-conceit is a poor seat to sit on. 

The little mite thinks himself the whole cheese. 

Those who live on vanity must expect to die of 
mortification. 

Vanity is the food of fools. 

He that is full of himself is empty. 

Every man thinks his own geese swans. 

Let us agree not step on each other's feet, said the 
peacock to the horse. 

Self-Control. 

Self-mastery is the essence of heroism. 

Everyone is the son of his own works. 

I have only one counsel for you, Be Master. 

He that makes himself nothing is nothing. 

We carry our greatest enemies within us. 

No man is free who cannot command himself. 

Beware of no man more than thyself. 

When a man lays the foundation of his own ruin, 
others will build on it. 

The man who would succeed in any great under- 
taking must hold all his faculties under perfect con- 
trol. 

Every man is the architect of his own fortunes. 

Man is supreme lord and master 
Of his own ruin and disaster. 

One of the most important, but one of the most 
difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own 
master. 

The best government is that which teaches us to 
govern ourselves. 



SELFISHNESS. 177 

He is a fool who cannot be angry; but he is a 
wise man who will not. 

The constancy of sages is nothing but the art of 
locking up their agitation in their hearts. 

He that would govern others, first should be the 
master of himself. 

He lost the game ; no matter for that, 
He kept his temper and swung his hat 
To cheer the winners — a better way 
Than to lose his temper and win the day. 

Self-Denial. 

True self-denial involves personal sacrifice for the 
good of others. 

To give up interest for duty is the alphabet of 
morals. 

A man of self-denial has the true ring which dis- 
tinguishes the genuine from the counterfeit. 

In our earliest years we must train ourselves to 
forego little things for the sake of others. 

The burdens which boyhood and girlhood must 
bear in acquiring an education, learning a trade, re- 
sisting temptation, and building spotless characters, 
demand the constant exercise of self-denial. 

Self-Improvement. 

The grand object of self-education is the mind; to 
cultivate the intellectual and moral powers. 

This is man's self; this is capable of much im- 
provement ; this imperiously demands our care ; and 
this will beyond all calculation repay us. 

The largest room in the world is the room for self- 
improvement. 

Selfishness. 

We talk on principle, but we act on interest. 

A dog with a bone knows no friend. 

No man is more cheated than the selfish man. 



178 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

< 

There are too many who reverse both the princi- 
ples and the practices of the apostles ; they become all 
things to all men, not to serve others, but them- 
selves ; and they try all things only to hold fast that 
which is bad. 

The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels. 

More genr'ous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts ; 

And conscious virtue mitigates the pang. 

Self-Knowledge. 

Of all studies, study your present condition. 

To know one's self is true progress. 

Every man kens best where his own shoe pinches. 

The first step to self-knowledge is self-distrust; 
nor can we attain to any kind of knowledge except 
by a like process. 

O, wad some pow'r the giftie gie us, 
To see ourselves as ithers see us. 

Self-Love. 

Self-love in a well-regulated breast is as the stew- 
ard of the household, superintending the expendi- 
ture, and seeing that benevolence herself should be 
prudential, in order to be permanent, by providing 
that the reservoir which feeds should also be fed. 

Self-Reliance. 

Every person has two educations, one which he 
receives from others, and one, more important, which 
he gives himself. 

Be sure, my son, and remember that the best men 
always make themselves. 

In battle or business, whatever the game, 

In law, or in love, it is ever the same ; 

In the struggle for power, or the scramble for pelf, 

Let this be your motto, "Rely on yourself." 

The best thing that can happen to a young man 



SENSE. 179 

is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or 
swim for himself. 

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we 
ascribe to heaven. 

Self-Respect. 

Above all things respect yourself. 

Self-respect, self-knowledge, self-control: these 
three alone lend life to sovereign power. 

Self-respect is a great aid to pure living. 

True self-respect challenges the admiration of 
others. 

It is generally the man who thinks well of him- 
self who comes to be thought well of. 

The main business of life is not to do something 
great, but to become great ourselves. 

To thine own self be true, and it will follow, as 
night the day, thou canst not then be false to any 
man. 

Self-Righteousness. 

Making a bridge of our own shadow. 

The hypocrite thinks himself religious, not from 
any goodness of his own, but from the badness of 
others. 

Many who have escaped the rocks of gross sins 
have been cast away on the sands of self-righteous- 
ness. 

The greatest step to heaven is out of our own 
doors, over our own threshold. 

Sense. 

If a man is born without common sense, he will 
die without it. 

A criminal refused to trust a lawyer with his 
secret, because he said "he was born with his mouth 
open; he was always talking on the street about 
his cases." 



180 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Common sense cannot be taught. 
No sense is so uncommon as common sense. 
A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of 
learning. 

Our senses, as our reason, are divine. 

Wit so pointed, it ne'er lost its end, 

And so well tempered, it ne'er lost a friend. 

Sound sense consists in giving to everything its 
due degree of importance; in proportioning senti- 
ment to the occasion that calls it forth. 

Sentiment. 

Sentiment is intellectual emotion. 

Sentiment is the life and soul of poetry and art. 

Servants. 

You can never tip a waiter so he will lose his bal- 
ance. 

If you pay not a servant his wages he will pay 
himself. 

If you have a loitering servant set his dinner be- 
fore him and send him on an errand. 

Fire and water are good servants, but bad mas- 
ters. 

Be not familiar with the servants ; at first it may 
beget love, but eventually will breed contempt. 

There should be but one master. 

He who serves the public obliges nobody. 

If you wish to be well served, serve yourself. 
Shadows. 

Grasping at shadows we let the substance slip. 

Most of the shadows that cross our path through 
life are caused by our standing in our own light. 
Shame. 

Shame lost, honor lost. 

Where there is shame there is virtue. 



SILENCE. i8i 

Mortifications are often more painful than calami- 
ties. 

That man is lost who has lost his sense of shame. 
One does the blame, another bears the shame. 
He who has no shame has no conscience. 

Sickness. 

God lays us on our backs that we may look 
heavenward. 

Sickness is the vengeance of nature for the viola- 
tion of her law. 

The sickness of the body may prove the health 
of the soul. 

When people are sick they think they will be 
good. 

Silence. 

Reason teaches silence, while the heart urges us 
to speak. 

Speech is silver, silence golden. 

Many have suffered from talking, few from 
silence. 

The silent dog is the first to bite. 

It is the wise head that makes the still tongue. 

A tattler is worse than a thief. 

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than 
speech. 

Silence is an excellent remedy against slander. 

The long unanswered letter bringeth friendship nigh 

to death, 
And few affections can endure determined dogged 

silence. 

More have repented of speech than silence. 
Say nothing and saw wood. 

It used to take a miracle to make an ass talk. 
Now it takes one to keep one quiet. 



182 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but 
not so many as have fallen by the tongue. 

Sieve. 

Said the sieve to the needle, "You have a hole in 
your head." 

Simplicity. 

Simplicity of character is the result of profound 
thought. 

The greatest truths, like the greatest men, are 
the simplest. 

There is a majesty in simplicity beyond the quali- 
ties of wit. 

Simplicity in character, in manner, in style; in 
all things the supreme excellence is simplicity. 
Sin. 

Every man has his besetting sin. 

The wages of sin is death. 

Sin let loose, punishment quickly follows. 

Little sins are pioneers of hell. 

One sin, new shame. 

All crimes are sins, but all sins are not crimes. 

Sincerity. 

Sincerity is the face of the soul, as simulation is 
its mask. 

Weak persons cannot be sincere. 

Sincerity and truth are the basis of every virtue. 

One breast laid open were a school which would 
unteach mankind the art to rule. 

Sheep. 

Sheep are the first animals mentioned in the Bible. 

The first shepherd was the first martyr. 
Show. 

The boughs that bear most hang lowest. 

He that humbleth himself shall be exalted. 



SLOTH. 183 

Slander. 

The most dangerous of wild beasts is a slanderer. 

Slander is the homage which vice pays to virtue. 
The man that dares traduce, because he can 
With safety to himself, is not a man. 

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may 
believe them. 

Calumny would soon die and starve of itself if 
nobody took it in and gave it lodging. 

The pure in heart are slow to credit calumnies. 

Avoid a slanderer as you would a serpent. 

The slanderer is like a serpent. The serpent 
stings; it is but a sting; but from that sting the 
poison diffuses itself through the whole body. The 
slanderer speaks! it is but a word, but that word 
resounds everywhere. 

Sleep. 

Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care. 

Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep. 

Hard work in the last three or four hours of the 
working day should be avoided. 

Position affects sleep, especially that of a police- 
man. 

When a man dies of insomnia it is not necessary 
to hold a wake over his body. 

Downy sleep, life's nurse, sent to us from heaven 
to renew us daily. 
Sloth. 

Sloth is the mother of poverty. 

Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears ; 
it is the torpidity of the mental faculties : sleep pro- 
found. 

If men were perfectly contented there would no 
longer be any activity in the world. 

Restless activity prevents individual and national 
stagnation. 



184 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Sloth wears out the body and consumes the mind. 
Sloth has smothered away many virtues. 

Smiles. 

Smiles embellish a homely face, and redeem an 
ugly one. 
Snare. 

The fear of man bringeth a snare : but whoso put- 
teth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. 
Sneers. 

Those who sneer habitually at human nature, and 
get to despise it, are among its worst and least pleas- 
ant samples. 

Who can refute a sneer? 

A sneer is independent of proof or disproof, rea- 
son, argument or sense. 

A sneer is often the evidence of heartless malig- 
nity. 

There was a lurking devil in his sneer. 

Sneering marks the egotist, the fool and the 
knave. 

Society. 

Society is an atmosphere of souls, and we imbibe 
from it something that is either infectious or health- 
ful. 

In men this blunder yet you find, 
All think their little set mankind. 
Society is composed of bores and bored. 
Success in society is the result of sympathy. 
No company is preferable to bad. 

Soldiers. 

Soldiers are martyrs to ambition. 
The best of soldiers come from the plow. 
Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer. 
A young soldier, a young beggar. 



SOVEREIGN. 185 

Solitude. 

All mighty designs are planned in solitude. 

A wise man is never less alone than when alone. 

Solitude is the audience chamber of God; it 
nerves us for life's conflict. 
Songs. 

A song will outlive sermons in the memory. 

Dewdrops of celestial melody. 
Sorrow. 

The path of sorrow, and that path alone, 
Leads to that land where sorrow is unknown. 

Life resembles a cup of clear water which be- 
comes muddy as we drink it. 

Sin and sorrow are inseparable. 

Earth has no sorrow which Heaven cannot heal. 

May there be just clouds enough in your life to 
cause a glorious sunset. 

The deeper the sorrow the less tongue it has. 

Some hearts are useless until they are broken. 

With the years come regrets and tears. 

Telling your troubles is swelling your troubles. 

You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from 
flying over your head, but you may prevent them 
from stopping to build their nests there. 
Come rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer ! 
Tho' the herd has fled from thee thy home is still 

here. 
Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast, 
And the heart and the hand all thine own to the last. 
Sovereign. 

King's entreaties are commands. 

The king's friend is he who tells him the truth. 

As princes fiddle, subjects must dance. 

No prince is so bad but what his follies are worse. 

A crown is no cure for the headache. 



186 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Sowing. 

As you make your bed so must you lie in it. 

One plows, another sows, 
Who will reap no one knows. 

An ill life, an ill end. 

Be not deceived ; God is not mocked, for whatso- 
ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he 
that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh 
reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit 
shall of the Spirit reap eternal life. 

Be your own most useful friend; 
Cease on others to depend. 

Those who sow injustice shall reap hate and ven- 
geance. 

He that sows wild oats will reap wild oats. 
Nothing but leaves ! No gathered sheaves 

Of life's fair ripening grain; 
We sow our seeds, lo ! tares and weeds, 
Words, idle words, for earnest deeds; 

We reap with toil and pain 
Nothing but leaves. 

Speech. 

If a man be a fool his speech will tell it. 

A bird is known by its note and a man by his talk. 

Education begins a gentleman, conversation com- 
pletes him. 

An orator without judgment is a horse without 
a bridle. 

When there is a gap in the conversation, don't 
put your foot in it. 

Think twice before you speak once and you will 
speak twice the better for it. 

Tell not all you know ; believe not all you hear. 

Conceit causes more conversation than wit. 

The wise man's tongue is a shield, not a sword. 



STATESMAN. 187 

In conversation humor is more than wit, easiness 
more than knowledge. 

If you your lips would keep from slips, 
Five things observe with care; 
Of whom you speak, to whom you speak, 
And how and when and where. 
Men should not talk to please themselves, but 
those that hear them. 

Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned 
with salt. 

Words and eggs must be handled with care ; 

For words once spoken, 

And eggs once broken, 
Are not the easiest things to repair. 

Spring. 

One swallow does not make spring. 
Stars. 

I am the bright and morning star. 

It was a star that led the wise men to the manger 
at Bethlehem. , 

And they that be wise shall shine as the bright- 
ness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to 
righteousness as the stars forever and forever. 

As are the beautiful stars of night so are the 
beautiful deeds of a good man amongst his fellow 
men. 

Astronomers tell us there are millions of stars 
and that every star is a sun, many of them hun- 
dreds of times larger than our own. 

Statesman. 

Yet a friend to truth, of soul sincere, 
In action faithful, and in honor clear; 
Who broke no promise, served no private end, 
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend. 



188 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Strenuous. 

To succeed in difficult undertakings we must be 
bold, active, earnest, ardent, enthusiastic — strenu- 
ous. 

Study. 

A boy will learn more true wisdom in a public 
school in a year than by private tuition in five. 

It is from their equals the lads gain information 
of the world; competition and rivalry stimulate ef- 
fort. 

History makes men wise, mathematics subtle, 
philosophy deep. 

Of making books there is no end, and much study 
is wearisome to the mind. 

He learns much who studies other men ; he learns 
more who studies himself. 

Mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; 
moral philosophy, grave; poetry, witty. 

Style. 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. 

Style indicates the personality of the writer, dis- 
playing his emotions and sensations. 

Obscurity and affectation are the great faults of 
style. 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever — till it goes 
out of style. 

Style indicates the personality of the writer, dis- 
playing his emotions and sensations. 

Obscurity and affectation are the great faults of 
style. 

Sublimity. 

The sublimest thoughts are conceived by the in- 
tellect when it is excited by pious emotions. 
One source of sublimity is infinity. 
The truly sublime is natural and easy. 



SURETY. 189 

Success. 

Success in life is the result not so much of talent 
or opportunity, as of perseverance. 

Deserve success and you shall attain it. 
To insure success one should curb his passions, 
and repress his expectations. 

Common sense and perseverance are the neces- 
sary ingredients of success. 

Nothing succeeds like success. 
The secret of success is constancy to purpose. 
Addison said, "We will do more than achieve suc- 
cess, we will deserve it." 

He who swells in prosperity will shrink in adver- 
sity. 

Prosperity may spoil me, 

And my troubles all enhance ; 
But Lord send it down once, 
I think I'll take the chance. 

The secret of success is embracing every oppor- 
tunity of seeking noble ends. 
Suicide. 

Suicide usually proceeds from cowardice, which 
sometimes prevents it. 

Suicide plunges the living soul into endless night. 
Superstition. 

Superstition always inspires bitterness. 

There are proselytes from atheism, but none from 
superstition. 

Surety. 

If thou force thy debtor to pay he will become 
thine enemy. 

He who is security for another is never secure 
himself. 

If a friend asketh thee to go on his bond, give 
him what thou canst spare. 



igo WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Suspicion. 

Suspicion is no less an enemy to virtue than to 
happiness. 

A man suspected is half condemned. 

A slight suspicion may destroy reputation. 

Discreet suspicion avoids a multitude of evils 
which credulity engenders. 

At the gate where suspicion enters, love and con- 
fidence go out. 

Suspicion is the poison of friendship ; children are 
free from this vice. 

A villain when he seems most kind is most to be 
suspected. 

Sweetheart. 

Let every husband stay a lover true, and every 
wife remain a sweetheart, too. 

Sympathy. 

A brother's suffering claims a brother's pity. 

Sympathy is the first great lesson a man should 
learn. 

Next to love, sympathy is the divinest passion of 
the human breast. 

Kindness by secret sympathy is tried, 
For noble souls in nature are allied. 

There is little influence where there is little sym- 
pathy, hence our seniors in age seldom influence us. 

Tact. 

Tact is the life of the five senses. 
Talent is wealth, tact ready money. 
A little tact and wise management may often gain 
a point where direct force would fail. 

Tact knows what to do, and how to do it. 
Tact supplies the place of many talents. 



TEACHING. 191 

Talent. 

Talent is the capacity of doing anything that 
depends upon application and industry. 

Small certainties are the bane of talented men. 

Talent convinces, genius but excites. 

Talkativeness. 

A wise man thinks all he says, a fool says all he 
thinks. 

Wise men talk because they have something to 
say, fools because they wish to say something. 

The less a man thinks, the more he talks. 

He that speaks sows, he that hears reaps. 

A bridle for the tongue is a fine piece of harness. 

Never hold any one by the button in order to be 
heard out; better hold your tongue. 

When in doubt what to say, say nothing. 

He who knows nothing knows enough if he 
knows when to be silent. 

Flies don't enter a closed mouth. 

Say nothing without you're compelled to, 
And then nothing that you can be held to. 

Task. 

Each morning sees some task begun, 

Each evening sees its close; 
Something attempted, something done, 
Has earned a night's repose. 
Taste. 

Taste is the perception of the beautiful, suscepti- 
bility to truth and nobleness ; a sense to discern and 
a heart to reverence beauty, order and goodness. 

It implies keenness of mental vision in harmony 
with itself. 
Teaching. 

To know how to suggest is the art of good teach- 
ing. 



192 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Delightful task to rear the tender thought, and 
teach the young idea how to shoot. 

Teachers are the allies of legislators. 

Thoroughly to instruct others is the best way to 
learn yourselves. 

Suggest rather than dogmatize. 

Children are like vases, they can imbibe little in- 
struction at a time. 

Tears. 

God washes the eyes with tears, that we may see 
heaven, where tears are shed no more. 

Tears are not the mark of weakness, but the safety 
valves of the heart. 

Tears humanize the soul. 

Every woe a tear may claim, except an erring 
sister's shame. 

Onions can make heirs and widows weep. 

Tears are sometimes as weighty as gold. 

Tearless grief bleeds inwardly. 
Temper. 

Cheerfulness lightens sickness and affliction. 

Good temper joined with innocence makes beauty 
attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit sparkling. 

Keep your temper; no one else wants it. 

A little pot is soon hot. 

Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make 
mad. 

When passion comes in at the door wisdom leaps 
out of the window. 

Good temper sheds a brightness over everything. 

Men of softness of temper have seldom noble sen- 
sations of soul. 

Bad temper bites at both ends ; it makes one's self 
nearly as miserable as it does other people. 

If you lose your temper, don't look for it. 

Good temper oils the wheels of life. 



TEMPTATION. 193 

Temper is so good a thing that we should never 
lose it. 

A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty; but a 
fool's wrath is heavier than them both. 

If religion has done nothing for your temper it 
has done nothing for your soul. 

Temperance. 

Temperance is the nurse of chastity. 

Rum will brutalize the manliest man in Christen- 
dom. 

Rum excites all that is bad, vicious and criminal 
in man. 

There may be some wit in a barrel of beer, but 
there is more in leaving it alone. 

Intemperance is now considered a social disgrace. 

The temperate man desires to hold all his pleas- 
ures within the limits of what is honorable. 

Temptation. 

'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall. 

Few men can resist the highest bidder. 

Every successful resistance to temptation is a 
victory. 

When a man resists sin on human motives only, 
he cannot hold out long. 

To realize God's presence secures us against 
temptation. 

He who keeps off the ice will not slip through. 

No one can be caught in places he does not visit. 

Temptation once yielded to gains power. 

He who avoids the temptation avoids the sin. 

Every man is tempted when he is drawn away 
of his own lusts and enticed. 

There hath no temptation taken you but such as 
is common to man. 

'Tis one thing to be tempted, and another thing 
to fall. 



194 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Tenderness. 

No man was ever truly great and generous unless 
he was also tender and compassionate. 

The less tenderness a man possesses the more he 
looks for it in others. 
Thankfulness. 

Be thankful for many things you did not get. 
Theatres. 

The theatre conforms to the taste of its auditors, 
otherwise they would remain absent. 

It is a ruiner of human life only in its worst and 
most immoral phases. 

A theatre conducted on moral principles would 
certainly bankrupt the manager. 
Theology. 

Truth is everlasting, but our ideas of truth are 
mutable. 

What constitutes a Christian is not the theology 
we have in our heads, but the faith and love we 
have in our hearts. 

Theology begins and ends with Christ and the 
atonement. 
Theories. 

We delight in investigating the abstruse. 

Theories are the guides to practice. 

They are but dreams till their effects be tried. 

It is easier to design than to execute. 
Thief. 

The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction 
Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief, 
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun ; 
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves 
The earth into salt tears ; the earth's a thief 
That feeds and breeds by a composture 
Stolen from general excrement ; each thing's a thief. 



THUNDER. 195 

Thought. 

Learning without thought is labor lost. 

The sober second thought is seldom wrong. 

Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed. 

Expression is the dress of thought. 

Words once spoken cannot be wiped out with a 
sponge. 

A civil guest will no more talk all the time than 
eat all the feast. 

Thought is brain sweat. 

Speech is the gift of all, but thought of few. 

The great thinker is seldom a disputant. 

The happiness of your life depends upon the qual- 
ity of your thoughts. 

The rich are too indolent, the poor too weak, to 
bear the fatigue of thinking. 

In matters of conscience first thoughts are best; 
in matters of prudence second thoughts. 

Thoughts shut up want air, and spoil like bales 
unopened to the sun. 

Thoughts for the Thirsty. 

Many a child is hungry because the brewer is rich. 

Another pot, try the tea pot. 

Drink like a fish — water only. 

Keep your lip from sip and sip. 

If you get the best of whiskey it will get the best 
of you. 

Liquor talks mighty loud when it gets out of the 

jug- 
Adam's ale is the best brew. 
Don't color your nose with publican's paint. 
Wine has drowned more men than the sea. 

Thunder. 

It does not thunder until the lightning has struck. 



iq6 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Time. 

A stitch in time saves nine. 

Happy the man and happy he alone who can call 
to-day his own. 

Much may be accomplished in our leisure half 
hours. 

Time well employed is Satan's deadliest foe. Lost 
wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge 
by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, 
but lost time is gone forever. 

We measure time by actions, by heart throbs, not 
by figures on the dial. 

Improve your time and your time will improve 
you. 

Time is a physician that either kills or cures. 

No greater crime than loss of time. 

Dost thou love life, then do not squander time, 
for that is the stuff life is made of. 

To save time is to lengthen life. 

Lose an hour in the morning and you will be all 
day hunting for it. 

The great rule of moral conduct, next to God, is 
to value time. 

Take time while time is, for time will away. 

Queen Elizabeth said, "All my possessions for a 
moment of time." 

They that make the best use of time have none 
to spare. 

Touch us gently, Time! 

We have not proud nor soaring wings ; 

Our ambition, our content, 

Lies in simple things. 

Humble voyagers are we, 

O'er life's dim, unsounded sea, 

Seeking only some calm clime: 

Touch us gently, gentle Time! 



TRADES. 197 

Make good use of time as thou valuest eternity. 

Toil. 

The heights by great men reached and kept, 
Were not attained by sudden flight, 

But they, while their companions slept, 
Were toiling upward in the night. 

Tongue. 

Tongue can never express the sweet comfort and 
peace of a soul in its earliest love. 

By examining the tongues of patients physicians 
find out diseases of the body, and philosophers the 
diseases of the mind. 

Toothache. 

There never yet was philosopher who could en- 
dure the toothache patiently. 

Trade. 

Measure thrice what thou buyest, and cut but 
once. 

He that shows his money shows his judgment. 

Trades. 

Give your boys trades and you give them the 
means of self-support and independence. Though 
they may not need to follow them for a living, yet 
they may have to. 

In Germany all have to learn trades; the em- 
peror, his brothers, sons, and the nobility, as well 
as those who depend upon them for a living. 

Satan selects his disciples from the idle, but our 
Saviour chose his while they were busy at their 
trades, making or mending their nets, or fishing in 
the sea. Nay, he himself stooped to a trade. He 
was a carpenter. 



198 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Tramps. 

The world owes every man a living, and every 
tramp an existence. 

Tramps are always in quest of a job, but hope 
they never will find one. 

Tragedy. 

The world is a comedy to those who think, a 
tragedy to those who feel. 

Travel. 

Two things the traveler easily forgets, his um- 
brella and the truth. 

To the weary traveler all beds are soft as down. 

A man need not be a good traveler solely because 
his mind wanders. 

We desire to go abroad in order to observe things, 
which at home we would not notice. 

Travel makes a wise man better and a fool worse. 

To increase our love of our country, it is only 
necessary to travel abroad. 

One month's travel gives us more information 
than a year's reading of books. 

Travel enlarges our ideas, for he who goes abroad 
is full of prejudices. 

The worst bred person in company is a young 
traveler just returned from abroad. 

Treasure. 

Where the trasure is, there the heart is. 
Lay up your treasures in heaven. 

Trees. 

Set trees poor and they will grow rich, set them 
rich and they will grow poor. 

Trifles. 

Despise not a small wound, a poor kinsman, or a 
humble enemy. 



TRUTH. 199 

There are no trifles in the moral universe of God. 

A little leak will sink a great ship. 

A point is the beginning of magnitude. 

A little each day is much in a year. 

Your clock within one twelvemonth ticketh thirty 
million seconds. 

A journey of a thousand miles is begun with a 
step. 

Trifles will make you liked or disliked. 

Little and often fills the purse. 

Little things are magnified by small men. 

Little strokes fell great oaks. 

Honesty in little things is not a little thing. 

Vast is the mighty ocean, but drops have made 
it vast. 

Every day is a little life, and our whole life is but 
a day repeated. 

A life devoted to trifles draws us from higher pur- 
suits. 

It is a great thing to do a little thing well. 

Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast 
been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over 
many things ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. 

Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmation 
strong as proofs of holy writ. 

Trouble. 

Never borrow trouble. 

Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. 

Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous tests 
from needless ease. 

Never trust him you have wronged. 

Troubles are the means by which our Heavenly 
Father tests our love for Him. 

Troubles bring out our latent faculties. 

Truth. 

Truth fears nothing but concealment. 



200 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sus- 
tain thee. 

Truth seeks no corners. 

The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to 
use it. 

Falsehood is always in a hurry. 

The truth will out. 

Truth travels in straight lines. 

None but cowards lie. 

Truth is the foundation of all knowledge, and the 
cement of society. 

A reputation for truthfulness is quickly gained, 
if you always speak ill of yourself. 

Tell the truth and shame the devil. 

What is truth, said jesting Pilate, and would not 
stay for an answer. 

Truth is conformity to fact. 

Truth is stranger than fiction. 

Truth is the handmaid of justice, freedom its 
child, peace its companion. 

He who conceals a fact is equally guilty with him 
who tells a lie. 

Thou must be true thyself if thou the truth would 
teach. 

It needeth courage to be true, 
And steadfastly the right to do; 
Loving him that wrongeth you. 

Truth is hard and sometimes hurts. 
Children and fools speak the truth. 
The withholding of truth is sometimes a worse 
deception than a direct misstatement. 

Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again ; 

The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error, wounded, writhes in pain, 

And dies among her worshipers. 



UNCIVIL. 201 

Abstract truth is the most precious of all bles- 
sings. 

Trust. 

To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be 
loved. 

The man who trusts mankind will make fewer 
mistakes than he who distrusts them. 

He who trusteth not is not deceived. 

Between trust and distrust lies the safe road. 

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. 

A prudent man does not make the goat his gar- 
dener. 

Tyranny. 

Where law ends tyranny begins. 

Kings will be tyrants from policy, where subjects 
are rebels from principle. 

'Tis excellent to have a giant's strength, but ty- 
rannous to use it like a giant. 

Ugliness. 

Your mirror is more truthful than your friend. 

Unbelief. 

Unbelief is the belief of a lie. 

Unbelief is believing the contrary. 

Unbelief makes this world a modern desert. 

Disbelief in futurity lessens the ties of morality, 
and is prejudicial to the peace and safety of society. 

Scott said, "Better they had ne'er been born, who 
read to doubt, or read to scorn. 

Narrowness is the mother of unbelief. 

Uncivil. 

A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing 
than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing 
to another man than to knock him down. 



202 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Understanding. 

The defects of the understanding grow worse as 
we grow old. 

Steele said, "I know of no evil so great as the 
abuse of the understanding, and yet there is no vice 
more common. 

A brainy man finds less difficulty in submitting 
to a wrong-headed fellow than in attempting to set 
him right. 

Usefulness. 

The most common things are the most useful. 

Men and things are only valuable as they are use- 
ful. 

Uselessness is unfitness for any end. 

Uselessness is worthlessness. 
Usury. 

A usurer takes too much interest in his business. 

Go not to a covetous old man with any request 
too soon in the morning, before he hath taken in that 
day's prey; for his covetousness is up before him, 
and he before thee, and he is in ill humor ; but stay 
till the afternoon, till he be satisfied upon some bor- 
rower. 

Vacation. 

Twice annually a man feels the need of rest — just 
before the summer vacation and just after it. 
Vagrancy. 

Beware of those who are homeless from choice. 

Vagrants claim the world owes them a living — 
and they mean to get it. 

Vagrancy is not aimless wandering; it is organ- 
ized for preying on industry; that is known to few 
but vagrants themselves. 

You have no hold on a being whose affections are 
without a tap root. 



VANITY. 203 

Valor. 

Many are brave when the enemy flies. 

He who fights and runs away will live to fight an- 
other day. 

Cowards die many times before their death. 

The valiant never die but once. 

None but the brave deserves the fair. 

The height of true valor is to dare to do your duty 
on all occasions. 

The better part of valor is discretion ; in the which 
better part I have saved my life. 

Valor brings success to few, misfortune to many. 

The brave alone know how to forgive. 

The love of glory, the fear of shame, the desire 
of ease, and the humor of pulling down other people. 

Put a coward on his mettle and he'll fight the 
devil. 

Vanity. 

Men will starve their happiness to feed their 
vanity, and their love to feed their pride. 

Vanity makes the rake at twenty, the worldly man 
at forty, and the retired man at sixty. 

Vanity has no sex. 

Those who live on vanity may expect to die of 
mortification. 

Personal vanity is incongruous with the great and 
ideal. 

Every man has as much vanity as he lacks under- 
standing. 

Of all our infirmities vanity is dearest to us. 

Vanity displays itself most in conversation. 

Pride makes us esteem ourselves, love approba- 
tion ; vanity, if you will, makes us desire the esteem 
of others. 

Men should both esteem themselves and desire 
the esteem of others. 



204 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

A man may be too proud to be vain, or too vain 
to be proud. 

When I see a person's name 
Scratched upon the glass, 

I know he owns a diamond, 
And his father owns an ass. 

The strongest passions allow us some rest, but 
vanity keeps us perpetually in motion. 

What a dust do I raise ! says the fly upon a coach 
wheel. And at what a rate do I drive ! says the fly 
upon the horse's back. 

Variety. 

Variety's the source of earthly joys. 
It is the spice of life that gives it all its flavor. 
The most delightful pleasures clog without vari- 
ety. 

Vice. 

The greatest incitement to vice is the belief that 
sin can be committed with impunity. 

The first false step in guilt hangs on the edge of 
a precipice, whose steep descent in perdition ends. 

Original sin remains in us until exterminated by 
divine grace. 

After one vice a greater follows. 

When our vices leave us we flatter ourselves that 
we leave them. 

When vice resembles virtue it is most dangerous. 

Great vices and great virtues alike make men 
famous. 

He who does evil that good may come pays a toll 
to the devil to let him into heaven. 

A hundred years of wrong do not make an hour 
of right. 

Better keep the devil out than have to turn him 
out. 



VIRTUE. 205 

From one black deed a thousand taunting fiends 
arise. 

The devil turns away from a closed door. 

He who swims in sin will sink in sorrow. 

Who is not ashamed of sin sins double. 

The willing contemplation of vice is vice. 

The martyrs to vice far exceed the martyrs to 
virtue, both in endurance and number. 

Prosperity discovers vice, but adversity discovers 
virtue. 

No man ever reached the summit of vice sud- 
denly. No man ever reached the depths of vice at 
once. 

A good man gone wrong is generally a bad man 
found out. 

Crimes often shock us greatly, vices too little. 

Who steals a pin will steal a greater thing. 

He that takes the devil into his boat must carry 
him over the sound. 

Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, that to 
be hated needs but to be seen ; yet seen too oft, fa- 
miliar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then 
embrace. 

Violence. 

Violent fires soon burn out themselves, and sud- 
den storms are short. 

Nothing good ever comes from violence. 

Virtue. 

Some by admiring other men's virtues become 
enemies to their own vices. 

A heart unspotted is not easily daunted. 

Virtue alone is true nobility. 

Virtue is its own reward. 

Virtue and happiness are mother and daughter. 

To be virtuous is to be happy. 



206 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Virtue is the best gift of heaven; it may be as- 
sailed but never hurt. 

Doing good to serve one's ends 
Is serving God for dividends. 

The beauty of holiness is the highest beauty. 
Everything great is not always good, but all good 
things are great. 

Virtue preserved from fell destruction's blast, 
Led on by heaven, and crowned with joy at last. 

Virtue is the first title of nobility. 
A lie has no legs, but a slander has wings. 
Argument seldom convinces any one contrary to 
his inclinations. 

In nature there's no blemish, but the mind ; 
None can be call'd deformed but the unkind ; 
Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous evil 
Are empty trunks, o'erflourished by the devil. 

A good life keeps off wrinkles. 

All fame is dangerous; good brings envy; bad, 
shame. 

Do good to your friend, that he may be more 
wholly yours; to your enemy, that he may become 
your friend. 

A work well begun is half ended. 

Virtue consists of three things — temperance, for- 
titude and justice. 

Make a virtue of necessity. 

Most men prefer to indulge in easy vices than 
to practice laborious virtue. 

Virtue consists in performing our whole duty to 
God, to ourselves, to our fellow men. 

He who plants kindness, gathers love. 

It pays to be good, and it's good to be paid. 

Be good and you will be lonesome. 



WAG. 207 

We may be good as we please if we please to be 
good. 

Much of virtue is the dread of the world's opin- 
ion of us. 

Do the best and leave the rest. 

It is not how long, but how well we live. 

He who plants knowledge gathers love. 

No man is born wise ; but wisdom and virtue re- 
quire a tutor; though we can easily learn to be 
vicious without a master. 

Vivacity. 

The vivacity of one relieves the dullness of others. 
Voice. 

The sweetest of all sounds is the voice of the 
woman we love. 

Sweet is the voice of a sister in times of sorrow. 

A loud voice bespeaks a vulgar man. 

The voice of the people is the voice of God. 

Often the voice of the masses is the voice of asses. 

There is no index of character so sure as the 
human voice. 

The devil hath not in all his quiver's choice an 
arrow for the heart like a sweet voice. 

Vulgarity. 

Never descend to vulgarity, even in joking. 

The manner of a vulgar man hath freedom with- 
out ease, and the manner of a gentleman hath ease 
without freedom. 

You may daub and bedizen the man as you will, 

But the stamp of the vulgar will stick to him still. 

Wag. 

A wag is the lowest order of pretenders to wit 
and humor. 

He is too empty to originate a jest. 



208 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Wager. 

A wager is a fool's argument. 

Most men, till by reading rendered sager, 
Will back their opinion for a wager. 

Waiting. 

He that waits for dead men's shoes may long go 
barefoot. 

Wants. 

It is not from nature, but from education and 
habit that our wants are chiefly derived. 

We are ruined not by what we want, but by what 
we think we want. 

The reason so few people get what they want is 
they don't want hard enough. 

Man wants but little here below, 

Nor wants that little long. 
'Tis not with me exactly so, 

But 'tis so in the song. 
My wants are many, and if told 

Would muster many a score; 
And were each wish a mint of gold 

I still should long for more. 

War. 

When war begins hell opens. 

The greatest curse that can be entailed on man- 
kind is civil war. 

War includes every vice. 

That war is only just when it is necessary. 

Even war is better than a wretched peace. 

In time of war the devil provides additional apart- 
ments in hell. 

The wise ruler would rather preserve peace than 
achieve a victory. 

All battle is misunderstanding. 



WEALTH. 209 

Weakness. 

To be weak is to be miserable, doing or suffering. 
Weakness is but vice in disguise. 
Every man has his hobby horse. 

Wealth. 

The love of money is the root of all evil, but the 
need of money is the evil itself. 

Money begets money. 

Money is power. 

God help the poor, the rich can help themselves. 

He is rich who owes nothing and who is satis- 
fied. 

Wrinkled purses make wrinkled faces. 

The secret of making money is the saving of it. 

Better an empty purse than an empty head. 

Petty mind and a beggar's purse. 

No place is so high that an ass laden with gold 
cannot attain it. 

To become rich we must appear to be so. 

A fortune in the hands of a fool is a misfortune. 

The more a man has the more he wants. 

Money never yet made a man happy. 

To acquire wealth is difficult, to retain it, more 
difficult of all. 

Vulgar minds will always pay greater respect to 
wealth than talent. 

A horse is worth more after it is broke, but it is 
different with a man. 

The way to wealth is as plain as the way to 
market; it depends only on two words — industry 
and frugality. 

Live within your income when you cannot live 
without it. 

Ready money is Aladdin's lamp. 

The greatest wealth is contentment with little. 

He's rich who is satisfied. 



210 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by 
exercise and abstinence; to live as if he were poor. 

Much money, many friends. 

For thy sake the fool throws up his interest in 
both worlds, first starved in this, then damned in 
that to come. 

The acquisition of wealth entails ceaseless labor, 
its possession continual fear, its loss excessive grief. 

The abuse of riches is worse than the want of 
them. 

There is no better friend in misfortune than gold. 

Gold is the sinew of the world. 

Make all you can, save all you can, give all you 
can. 

Excessive wealth yields neither joy nor happiness. 

Weariness. 

It is great weariness to do nothing. 
Never weary in well-doing. 

But if this weariness hath come 

A present from on high, 
Teach me to find the hidden wealth 
That in its depths may lie. 
Weather. 

Evening red and morning gray, 

Set the traveler on his way ; but 

Evening gray, and morning red, 

Brings down rain upon his head. 

If Candlemas Day be clear and fair, 

We'll have two winters in one year. 

Set trees poor and they will grow rich; set them 

rich and they will grow poor. 

This rule in gardening ne'er forget — 
To sow dry and set wet. 

Sow wheat in dirt and rye in dust. 
A snow year, a rich year. 



WELL-DOING. 211 

The change of weather is the discourse of fools. 
Wedlock. 

The woman's occupation and her mission is at 
home, a home other than her father's and knit with 
dearer ties. 

Who can guess the potency of woman's love and 
patience, her precious influence, her sweet strength, 
to bless a husband's home? 

She that weds well will wisely match her love, 
Nor be below her husband — nor above. 

Take heed that what charmeth thee is real, nor 
springeth of thine own imagination; and suffer not 
trifles to win thy love. 

Blessed is the man that hath a virtuous wife, for 
the number of his days shall be doubled. 

Who weds a sot to get his cot will lose the cot and 
keep the sot. 

At the gate which suspicion enters love goes out. 

A friend that you buy with presents will be 
bought from you. 

Easy to keep the castle that was never besieged. 

He loves you as a ferrit does a rabbit, to make a 
meal of you. 

If the mother had never been in the oven, she 
would not have looked for her daughter there. 

Take heed, girl, of the promise of a man, for it 
will run like a crab. 

Well-doing. 

Rest satisfied with doing well and leave others to 
talk about you as they will. 

When I did well I heard it never ; 
When I did ill I heard it ever. 

The conscience of well-doing is an ample reward. 
Doing good is the only certain happy act of a 
man's life. 



212 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

The good you do is not lost, though you forget it. 

If nothing more than purpose in thy power, 
Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed; 
Who does the best his circumstances allow 
Does well, acts nobly ;' angels could no more. 

Whispers. 

A whisper oft separates friends. 
The whisperer's tongue is worse than the ser- 
pent's venom. 

Where there is whispering there is lying. 
Never whisper in company. 

Widow. 

Widows weep for the lack of a husband, and not 
for the loss of one. 

The woman who marries a second time has no 
cause to complain. 

He that woos a maid must seldom come in her sight, 
But he that woes a widow, must woo her day and 

night. 
Wife. 

The best furniture in a house is a virtuous woman. 

The first wife is a servant, the second a lady. 

The peculiar gift of heaven. 

Better a bachelor's life 
Than a slovenly wife. 

The speaker of the house is your wife. 

He who does not honor his wife dishonors him- 
self. 

A man without a wife is like a house without a 
roof. 

Who has a bad wife his hell begins on earth. 

The wife that expects to have a good name 
Is always at home as if she were lame. 
Who takes a rich wife sells his freedom. 



WILL-POWER. 213 

The wife loves with the heart, the husband with 
the head. 

That men scold their wives in public indicates that 
they are afraid to do so at home. 

As the good man saith, so say we, 

But as the good wife saith, so must it be. 

Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for 
middle age, and old men's nurses. 

She who ne'er answers till her husband cools, or 
if she rules him never shows she rules, charms by 
accepting, by submitting, sways, yet has her control 
most when she obeys. 

A woman can throw away more with a spoon 
Than a man can bring in with a shovel. 

Descend a step in choosing thy wife, ascend a 
step in choosing thy friend. 

The ideal wife never marries. 

The foot on the cradle and the hand on the dis- 
taff make up the picture of the good housewife. 

An obedient wife commands her husband. 
Sweet, sensible and sincere 
Is dowry worth a hemisphere. 

The man who is proud of his wife should occa- 
sionally tell her so. 

Better a fortune in a wife than with a wife. 

A man cannot possess anything better than a good 
wife, nor worse than a poor one. 

Will-power. 

Men, dying, make their wills, 

But wives escape a work so sad ; 
Why should the gentle dames make 
What all their lives they've had? 
Great souls have wills, feeble ones have only 
wishes. 

People do not lack strength, they lack will 



214 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

To deny the freedom of the will is to make moral- 
ity impossible. 

Let us, then, be up and doing, 
With a heart for any fate ; 

Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor, and to wait. 

Where there's a will there's a way. 
We have more power than will. 
No termination without determination. 
Willing comes before working. 
When the will is ready the feet are light. 
Like a postage stamp, a man's value depends on 
his ability to stick to a thing till he gets there. 
Little strokes fell great oaks. 

Wanted a will ! 
They would come to church, but they want a hat, 

a bonnet, or a shawl ; 
They want time ; they must rest after six days' work. 
Their wants are innumerable, but one they never 

name — 
They want will. Where there's a will there's a way. 

Character is educated will. 

Culture of will is character building. 

The first element of success is determination to 
succeed. 

Conscious will is the only true basis of moral ac- 
tion. 

Will is the most vital element of character. 

Feebleness of will brings about weakness of head 
and of heart. 

Strength of will is power to resist and persist. 

Control of the will is preferable to knowledge. 

A man's being in a good or bad humor depends 
upon his will. 

The important thing in life is to have a great aim 
and the determination to attain it, 



WISDOM. 2is 

The education of the will is the object of our 
existence. 

Man is made great or little by his will. 

Willingness. 

Who serves everybody gets thanks from nobody. 
Make yourself an ass and every one will lay a 
sack on you. 

Who would please all and please himself too, 
Undertakes something he cannot do. 

Wine. 

No one is so wise that wine does not make him 
a fool. 

Wine has drowned more men than the sea. 

Wine is a turncoat ; first a friend, then a deceiver, 
and finally an enemy. 

It ruins the purse and sours the stomach. 

Wine is a betrayer of secrets. 

Wisdom. 

Wisdom is more to be envied than riches. 

Wisdom is the conqueror of fortune, the mother 
of all arts, and the sunshine of the soul. 

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. 

Common sense is what the world terms wisdom. 

Age brings wisdom, but it doesn't leave much 
time to use it. 

Wisdom to the mind is better than money to 
the hands. 

Wealth may seek us but wisdom must be sought. 

Be wisely worldly but not worldly wise. 

Learning is better than wealth; 
Culture better than learning; 
Wisdom better than culture. 

The Italian is wise before he understands a thing, 
the German while he is doing it, and the Frenchman 
when it is over, 



216 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Despise not the discourse of the wise, but acquaint 
thyself with their proverbs. 

Wisdom is neither inheritance nor legacy. 

Thou art wise if thou beat off petty troubles and 
do not suffer their stinging to fret thee. 

Wisdom is better than rubies ; and all the things 
that may be desired are not to be compared unto her. 

A wise son maketh a glad father. 

The sublimity of wisdom is to do those things 
living which are to be desired when dying. 

Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves. 

They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of 
the firmament; and they that turn many to right- 
eousness as the stars for ever and ever. 

They who educate children well are more to be 
honored than they who produce them ; for these only 
gave them life, those the art of living well. 

Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge 
in adversity, and the best provision in old age. 

He commands enough that obeys a wise man. 
Wishing. 

Wishing is an expedient to be poor. 

Wishers and woulders are never good household- 
ers. 

Wishes never rilled the bag. 

I never fared worse than when I wished for my 
supper. 

Our very wishes, when realized, give us not our 
wish. 

What ardently we wish we soon believe. 

No wise man ever wishes to be younger. 

Our blunders mostly come from letting our 
wishes interpret our duties. 

Wit. 

An ounce of wit is worth a pound of argument. 
Wit and wisdom seldom join hands. 



WOMAN. 217 

Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast. 

A pun 

Well done 

Is legitimate fun. 

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food. 

They who have the most wit 
Are the most sparing of it. 
Wit is the flower of imagination, judgment its 
fruit. 

A little nonsense now and then 
Is relished by the best of men. 
Wit may be of pure imagination, but humor in- 
volves sentiment and character. 

A fool attempting to be witty 
Is an object of profoundest pity. 
It takes wit to see wit. 
Brevity is the soul of wit. 
Big head, little wit ; small head, not a bit. 
Wit gives an edge to sense. 

True wit is nature to advantage dressed ; what oft 
was thought but ne'er so well expressed. 

Wit is folly unless a wise man has the keeping 
of it. 

Woe. 

The most unhappy man is he who believes him- 
self so. 

How bitter it is to look at happiness through an- 
other man's eyes. 

Companionship in woe doth woe assuage. 
Woman. 

A mannish woman and a womanish man 
Are rank innovations on the Almighty's plan. 

Woman is the fairest work of the Great Author; 

A handsome woman is always right. 



218 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

and, the edition being large, no man should be with- 
out a copy. 

A clock serves to point the hours, and woman to 
make us forget them. 

A woman's counsel is not a great thing, but he 
who takes it not is a fool. 

What's a table richly spread without a woman 
at the head? 

She embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affec- 
tion, and if shipwrecked her case is hopeless, for it 
is a bankruptcy of the heart. 

Of all paths which lead to a woman's love pity's 
the straightest. 

She hugged the offender and forgave the offence, 
sex to the last. 

A man without religion is to be pitied, but a God- 
less woman is a holy horror. 

Women are either better or worse than men. 

Men are women's playthings. 

Woman will more readily forgive a liberty than 
a slight. 

Most men like their opposites in women. 

The future of society is in the hands of mothers. 

Woman is something between a flower and an 
angel. 

Woman's very silence is eloquent. 

Woman's natural mission is to love but one, to 
love always. 

Women's extravagance causes their male friends 
to remain unmarried. 

A handsome woman is a jewel, a good woman a 
treasure. 

Women never truly command until they promise 
to obey. 

All women can be prudent at a masquerade. 

Fortune and woman are partial to fools. 

A woman's fitness comes by fits. 



WOMAN. 219 

Dazzled and charmed, he call'd that woman bride, 
And his first sleep became his last repose. 

How few are lovely that are made for love ! 
Do you, my fair, endeavor to possess 
An elegance of mind as well as dress? 

A woman that feareth the Lord she shall be 
praised. 

Beauty is but skin deep. 

The weeping bride makes a laughing wife. 

If ladies be but young and fair, 
They have the gift to know it. 

A fine girl and a tattered gown always find some- 
thing to hook them. 

Whatever may be the customs and laws of a 
country, the women of it decide the morals. 

Adam laid him down and slept, and from his side 
a woman in her magic beauty rose. 

A woman hates a question except when she asks it. 

To-day she's melting hot, to-morrow swears she 
loves you not. 

A woman deserted by one man has no remedy but 
to appeal to twelve. 

If a woman says she will you can depend on it, 
but when she says she won't, why there's an end 
on it. 

When a woman smiles look out, when she frowns 
get out. 

Heart on her lips and soul within her eyes, soft 
as her clime and sunny as her skies. 

Woman is often the bitter half of men. 

A woman's work and the washing of dishes are 
never at an end. 

Man's work is from sun to sun ; 
But woman's work is never done. 

Men have sight, woman insight, 



220 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Most women have a good deal of pity for some 
other woman's husband. 

A woman's tongue is only three inches long, but 
it can kill a man six feet high. 

If you care to live in peace, beware of women, 
fiddlers and geese. 

For every Jack there is somewhere a Jill, 
That can do with poor Jack about as she will. 

Every ugly or beautiful woman should be flat- 
tered on her understanding, and the mediocre one on 
her beauty. 
Woman and Wedlock. 

The only book that woman longs to write in is 
a man's heart. 

The test of civilization is the estimate of women. 

Matrimony is the goal of a woman's ambition. 
Dispute our bondage as we will, 
'Tis woman, woman, rules us still. 

Men are as old as they feel, and women as they 
look. 

No woman is ugly if she be well dressed. 

A woman wins an aged husband by listening to 
him, and a young man by talking to him. 

No goose so gay but soon or late some honest 
gander'll be her mate. 

Women are to be talked to as above men and be- 
low children. 

Courteous, though coy and gentle, though retired. 

A woman complains to a woman in woe. 

She laughs when she can and weeps when she 
pleases. 
Words. 

Words are but pictures of thoughts, syllables gov- 
ern the world. 

A wise man reflects before he speaks. 

A word to the wise is sufficient, 



WORLD. 221 

Speech is the gift of all, but thought of few; 
thoughts shut up want air. 

Keep thy tongue and retain thy friend. 

A silent fool is thought wise. 

Words disclose a man's wit, but deeds his mean- 
ing. 

Promises fill no sack. 

Fair words won't feed the cat. 

Vows made in storms are forgotten in calm. 

Words and feathers are tossed by the wind. 

Better break your leg than your word. 

Promises make debts and debts make promises. 
Say well and do well, end with one letter; 
Say well is good, but do well is better. 

A word and a stone thrown away do not return. 

The more words are condensed the brighter they 
burn. 

A small drop of ink makes thousands think. 

No life can be dreary when work is delight. 

You never know what you can do till you try. 

Industry is the parent of success. 

Industry is the parent of virtue. 

The end of all is an action, not a thought, though 
it were of the noblest. 

There is a wonderful power in honest work to 
develope latent energies, and reveal a man to him- 
self. 

Work wields the weapons of power. 

World. 

To understand the world is wiser than to con- 
demn it. 

To study the world is better than to shun it. 

One-half of the world must sweat and groan that 
the other half may dream. 

The world is a comedy to those that think, a 
tragedy to those who feel. 



222 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

The world is like a staircase, some go up and 
some go down. 

'Tis an excellent world that we live in. 

A man never appreciates ashes until he has slip- 
ped on the ice. 

In the glass one sees smiles, another tears ; 

Same glass, why is it? 
In the same world one sees hope, another fear ; 

Same world, why is it? 

In this world the worst pig often gets the best 
acorn. 

When the big dog is down the little dogs bite him. 

Little birds pick at the dead lion. 

One half the world knows not how the other half 
lives. 

Worry. 

Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. 

More of our worries come from within than from 
without. 

Don't climb the hill before you cross the valley. 

He that seeks trouble it were a pity he should 
miss it. 

Harm watch, harm catch. 

Worry kills more men than work. 

Worth Remembering. 

What none can prove a forgery may be true. 

Our sorrows are never so great that they hide our 
mercies. 

All may do what has by man been done. 

He that goes the contrary way must go over it 
twice. 

It is not a chargeable thing to salute civilly. 

The confidence of ability is ability. 

Two things a man should never be angry at ; what 
he can help, and what he cannot help. 



WOUNDS. 223 

God's anger is His love thrown back upon itself 
from unreceptive and unloving hearts. 

The Lord is slow to anger. 

He shall not guess the secret charm that lureth 
his soul to love thee. 

A competence is all we can enjoy. 

True honor is acquired by nothing but good con- 
duct. 

I not only speak so that I can be understood, but 
so that I cannot be misundertsood. 

That which was bitter to endure may be sweet to 
remember. 

Each thing remembered, all but guilt, 
Is pleasant, and a constant source of joy. 

No one gets into trouble without his own help. 

The oft-moved stone gathers no moss. 

We do not always gain by changing. 

God fills the empty and empties the full. 

It is too late to cover the well when the child is 
drowned. 

It may be hard to work, but it may be harder to 
want. 

Beautiful hands are those that do 
Work that is earnest, brave and true, 
Moment by moment, the whole day through. 

The hole invites the thief. 

He that makes himself an ass must not take it ill 
if men ride him. 

Wounds. 

Men absolved by mercy from the consequences, 
forget the evil deed, and God imputes it not. 

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to 
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all un- 
righteousness. 



224 WISDOM OF THE WORLD. 

Wrong-doing. 

Confess that you were wrong yesterday; it will 
show that you are wise to-day. 

By night an atheist half believes in a God. 

Old wounds easily bleed. 

The knife's wounds heal, the tongue's never. 

None are evil wholly, or evil all at once. 

If we say that we have not sinned, we make God 
a liar. 

Whatever may have been the past, however black 
and hideous, it hath a present cure — repentance with 
amendment. 

If you want easier traveling mend your ways. 

A fault confessed disarms slander. 

Never was hood so holy but the devil could get 
his head into it. 

Youth. 

The highest art is artlessness. 
When young we trust ourselves too much, and 
others too little when old. 

Young men think old men are fools ; 
But old men know young men are fools. 

A fence lasts three years, a dog lasts three fences, 
a horse three dogs, and a man three horses. 

Men are like wine, age sours the bad and im- 
proves the good. 

Length of days is not a good, 
Unless their use be understood. 

There is no fool like an old fool. 

The old man that dances furnishes the devil fine 
sport. 

It is very funny to see a puppy run after his tail, 
but it is a fool trick in an old dog. 

Youth is perpetual intoxication. 



WAY 12 1904 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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